Ramsay Health Care Joins Forces with Google Cloud to Help Support Its 2030 Digital Strategy

Ramsay to harness the power of data and AI as it strives for improved outcomes for patients

Ramsay Health Care (Ramsay), Australia’s largest private hospital operator, has selected Google Cloud as its data and innovation partner to support the company’s 2030 digital transformation strategy. Ramsay will collaborate with Google Cloud to give nurses, hospitals, and clinicians better access to patient data, and use Google Cloud’s artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) tools as part of its commitment to offering gold standard clinical care.

Soon, clinicians could be able to utilize AI-powered risk assessment tools to help proactively identify patients at risk of illness. By analyzing vast amounts of patient data—vital signs, labs, notes, and more—the hospital’s AI algorithms will help spot patterns and risk factors to help doctors more effectively diagnose conditions.

“Data and AI can have a profound impact on reimagining health care and solving some of our most pressing challenges,” said Dr Rachna Gandhi, Group Chief Digital and Data Officer at Ramsay Health Care. “With Google Cloud, we’re taking an insights-driven approach to transforming how we deliver clinical care—everything from optimizing patient care and experiences to identifying trends and supporting better decisions about treatments.”

Creating a centralized data hub is a critical component in delivering on the health care provider’s 2030 digital strategy. Ramsay has a network of more than 70 hospitals, clinics, and surgical centers across the country. Previously, data sat in separate on-premise locations, making analysis and insights extraction a time-intensive and cumbersome process.

Building a robust data and insights hub

In partnership with Kasna, part of Mantel Group, the Ramsay Data Hub will be built using Google Cloud's serverless and cost-effective enterprise data warehouse, BigQuery, which provides an easy path to becoming an intelligence-driven organization. It will allow Ramsay to securely and cost-effectively ingest, store, and analyze both real-time data as well as large volumes of diverse, raw data to deliver insights-driven business transformation.

To better support data interoperability, Ramsay will also deploy Google Cloud’s Apigee API Management, and Anthos Service Mesh solutions. These tools will help the company support health care data protocols that define how information can be securely managed and accessed within and between facilities, opening up more opportunities to improve patient care.

“By working with Google Cloud to build our data foundation, we are gaining a deeper understanding of what is happening across the company.”

Data security and privacy

Google Cloud’s responsible approach to data governance and privacy ensures only Ramsay controls access and use of patient’s data.

“Most important to us is data security. With Google Cloud, data is encrypted end-to-end, allowing us to

create innovative solutions that strictly comply with regulations and protect privacy. All data is encrypted by default at rest and in-flight and we are using our own encryption keys to further protect the sensitive confidential health information. No one accesses our patient data except us. For health care providers, that is non-negotiable,” said Dr Gandhi.

Reimagining the future of healthcare with data & AI

Ramsay is now working with Google Cloud to build new AI-led health care solutions which will play a crucial role in streamlining clinical workflows and provide clinicians with easy access to critical information to enhance patient care, including:

• Analyzing clinical notes: With new AI-powered tools, Ramsay clinicians will be able to extract insights to enhance clinical decision-making by identifying patterns and trends that may not be obvious.

• Faster, accurate coding: Ramsay is planning to use AI algorithms to optimize clinical coding, which will reduce the burden on medical coders and improve coding accuracy.

• Improved demand forecasting: Ramsay will utilize AI to ensure medications do not go to waste, and enable more systematic allocation of procedures to optimize theater and staff utilization, leading to cost savings, while ensuring there is no compromise to patient care.

“Ramsay is revolutionizing the future of health care with its approach to data and AI-led insights,” said Alister Dias, Vice President, Google Cloud, Australia and New Zealand. “The creation of a centralized data hub means that Ramsay can improve connectivity, operationalise data, and unlock new insights to truly help its patients and clinicians. This is also a great example of how AI in healthcare can not only help drive efficiencies, but also have broad societal impact.”

“We are privileged to collaborate with Ramsay Health Care and Google Cloud in a remarkable digital transformation journey,” said Simon Poulton, CEO of Kasna. “With our extensive experience in deploying Google Cloud in highly regulated environments, we are uniquely positioned to accelerate Ramsay's ambitious goals of leveraging their vast amount of data. Together, we can make a positive impact on the lives of Australians through evidence-based insights."

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About Ramsay Health Care

Established in Australia in 1964, Ramsay Health Care is the nation’s largest private hospital operator and fourth largest employer. With more than 70 hospitals, day surgeries and clinics, Ramsay Health Care Australia admits more than 1.1 million patients and delivers more than 23,000 babies annually. Ramsay is a respected leader in Australia’s private health care sector and is a well-recognised brand in the industry. Ramsay also operates three public hospitals in Australia and has established a pharmacy brand with 40 in-house dispensaries and 60 community franchise pharmacies.