Pediatric Health Institutions Expand by Leveraging Cloud Technology

Children's National Hospital, a world leader in pediatric medicine, has been at the forefront of adapting to digital technologies to enhance its research and innovation capabilities. The hospital, located in Washington, D.C., has recently formed strategic partnerships with tech giants like Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google Cloud, aiming to bolster its research efforts.

The need for substantial storage and computer power is significant at Children's National, given the vast amounts of data they analyze. This is particularly true in the realm of pediatric research, where understanding and combating diseases such as childhood brain cancers and congenital brittle-bone disorders requires intricate data analysis.

Mihailo Kaplarevic, the chief research information officer at Children's National, has spearheaded the hospital's digital transformation. He notes that the cloud offers Children's National a scalable and secure "landing zone" for its researchers, accessible through their personal accounts. Within the AWS landing zone, researchers can store data, spin up servers, or use various workflows and services.

The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the importance of healthcare tailored to children. In response, Children's National, along with many other children's hospitals, has been turning to the cloud for solutions. The cloud provides improved data storage and processing, less maintenance, and easier collaboration for researchers.

Since 2021, Children's National has collaborated with Google Cloud, providing its researchers with access to cloud-based platforms. Similarly, Amazon Web Services (AWS) has become a new strategic partner, offering support and cloud-computing tools for the medical researchers at RIC.

Other children's hospitals are also embracing the cloud. Children's Mercy Kansas City, for instance, has moved more than 4 petabytes of data offsite and into the cloud, with plans to use Azure alongside a variety of open-source and commercial sequence-analysis applications. This move is part of a significant project underway at its Genomic Medicine Center, aiming to drive improvements in pediatric care.

Children's Health of Orange County (CHOC) is another institution using cloud services, utilising AWS and Microsoft Azure for tasks such as internal application development, hosting, and virtual desktop infrastructure for clinicians.

In 2021, Children's National opened the Children's National Research & Innovation Campus (RIC), a property designed to nurture innovation from discovery to commercialization. This strategic move further cements Children's National's commitment to leveraging technology to drive advancements in pediatric medicine.

Organisations are increasingly outsourcing the most technical aspects of keeping data on-premises, with CHIME (College of Healthcare Information Management Executives) noting that cloud deployments are on the rise. This trend is evident in the pediatric healthcare sector, where the cloud is proving to be a powerful tool for gleaning actionable insights from medical data and facilitating better information mobility.

As children's hospitals continue to adapt and innovate, the use of cloud technology is set to play a crucial role in driving breakthroughs in pediatric medicine and improving the lives of countless children.