Siemens Healthineers establishes global Digital Ecosystem to drive digitalization of healthcare

At the 55th Annual Meeting for the Health Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS), Siemens Healthineers announces a digital platform for healthcare providers as well as for providers of solutions and services, aimed at covering the entire spectrum of healthcare. The platform is to foster the growth of a digital ecosystem linking healthcare providers and solution providers with one another as well as bringing together their data, applications and services.

In the Siemens Healthineers Digital Ecosystem, data from imaging, in-vitro diagnostics and medical documentation is combined and assessed. This data is generated in one of the healthcare industry's largest installed bases, i.e. the Siemens Healthineers customers who have agreed to participate in the ecosystem. Furthermore it will allow its users to exchange data and knowledge with other experts beyond their own institution. With the Digital Ecosystem Siemens Healthineers aims to set new trends in healthcare together with its customers and partners to enable healthcare providers around the world to meet their current challenges and to excel in their respective environments.

Digitalization in healthcare is expected to drive the much-needed change towards widespread value-based care and dramatically reduced costs. Deep insights, i.e. into the clinical or operational performance of a healthcare facility, are essential for the digital transformation of healthcare. With its Digital Ecosystem, Siemens Healthineers plans to contribute to value-based healthcare by enabling fast, simple and seamless interaction between providers of data and knowledge.

Through the Digital Ecosystem Siemens Healthineers will provide its customers with aggregated data which are usable for different evaluations. For example tools for predictive analysis could enable users to discern new correlations and trends to help improve diagnoses and guide therapy choices. Global knowledge exchange is a very important instrument in medicine to improve patient care. The Siemens Healthineers Digital Ecosystem will allow experts to link and communicate with their peers worldwide, and healthcare providers can benefit from Siemens Healthineers’ extensive expertise in nearly all clinical areas, including experience in data security in the healthcare market.

Because a digital ecosystem thrives if as many service providers as possible contribute to it, the Siemens Healthineers Digital Ecosystem comes with open API’s (Application Programming Interface) to enable application developers and solution providers to efficiently create, market and offer services which are seamlessly integrated into a shared digital healthcare platform. Partner companies will be able to access one of the largest pools of in-vivo and in-vitro data, and share their solutions with healthcare providers in markets all across the world.

“We believe that digitalization and the associated networking of healthcare providers is essential for the transformation to value-based healthcare. Big data needs to become smart data. With the Siemens Healthineers Digital Ecosystem, we are providing our customers with much deeper insights than previously possible into the key components that create both clinical and operational value.” commented Dr. Arthur Kaindl, Head of Digital Health Services at Siemens Healthineers. “Such a major transformation can only be initiated by working together. Our partners are essential to the success of this platform, and ultimately to the success of transforming healthcare.”

The Siemens Healthineers Digital Ecosystem is based on the cloud-based network teamplay1, which has been recognized for its handling of data privacy[2] and is already in use at hundreds of customer sites. It brings together a number of additional platforms such as LifeNet or the Point of Care (POC) Informatics solution from Siemens Healthineers. Built on Microsoft Azure cloud platform, it currently contains several million data records, providing, for example, insight into the level of utilization of imaging devices in a clinic or the associated radiation doses. Because data security and privacy are taken very seriously, the cloud-based network offers different privacy levels to support compliance with local regulations2.

Opening development of the ecosystem to companies such as application, service and solution providers, device manufacturers, platform developers or data providers, results in a shared digital platform on which Siemens Healthineers and its partners can offer applications and services for healthcare providers to support decision-making and increase productivity. Arterys, Dell EMC, SecondOpinions.com, Stroll Health, SyntheticMR, 3D Slicer, TMC, USARAD and Viewics already agreed to provide applications and technologies for the Siemens Healthineers Digital Ecosystem, and the platform is open for additional partners. At the conference in Orlando, Siemens Healthineers will present an initial prototype of its digital platform, with single-sign-on access to its partners’ applications and services. The platform is planned to be commercially available in the fall of 2017.

Information about the solutions from Arterys, Dell EMC, SecondOpinions.com, Stroll Health, SyntheticMR, 3D Slicer, TMC, USARAD and Viewics on the Siemens Healthineers Digital Ecosystem is available at https://usa.healthcare.siemens.com/infrastructure-it/healthineers-digital-ecosystem/digital-ecosystem

References:

1. teamplay is not yet commercially available in some countries. No undertakings can be given as to its future availability due to the special legal provisions pertaining to medical devices. More detailed information can be obtained from the relevant local Siemens organization.

2. teamplay – CORE applications: teamplay Dose, teamplay Usage and teamplay Protocols – has been awarded with the European Privacy Seal and the German “Seal of Privacy for IT products” of the Independent Centre for Privacy Protection
in Schleswig-Holstein (ULD).