Philips
(NYSE: PHG)
today announced an expanded partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS) based around digital pathology in the cloud.
The two initially linked up about a year ago, inking a deal to develop generative AI applications. This partnership centered around Philips’ imaging archiving and communications system. It wasn’t the first time a medtech giant linked up with AWS, as GE HealthCare and Baxter also announced similar deals in the past.
Today’s announcement aims to unite Philips’ expertise in the digitization of pathology with AWS’ leadership in scalable, secure cloud solutions.
Together, Philips and AWS hope to advance digital pathology. They want to help labs efficiently store, manage and analyze growing volumes of digital pathology data. This would, in turn, enable the adoption of digital workflows to increase productivity.
Additionally, Philips says pathology labs can optimize workflow efficiency and facilitate collaboration among specialists. This enables the seamless integration into existing healthcare systems, leading to holistic patient care.
“By harnessing the power of the cloud to accelerate the digitization of pathology, we are improving the quality of patient care by enabling greater workflow efficiency and collaboration at scale,” said Shez Partovi, chief innovation & strategy officer and chief business leader for enterprise informatics at Philips. “As the demand for pathology-based diagnosis continues to increase, we see digital pathology in the cloud as a critical enabler for productivity, scale and to further transform healthcare diagnostics by opening new avenues for research, education, and the integration of AI to further improve patient care.”
More about the Philips-AWS partnership
Philips provides digital pathology systems that extend to more than 300 customers using its digital workflows with IntelliSite Pathology. The company believes its deal with AWS could enable large-scale clinical trials, multi-institute studies and care collaboration. This would help address complex cases, including cancer care.
Under their agreement, Philips plans to use AWS HealthImaging to optimize storage, increase scale and enable AI and research. The company expects this to advance pathology image analysis and simplify clinical workflows. Additionally, Amazon Bedrock and its high-performing foundation models can support generative AI development and integration.
“Healthcare organizations benefit when clinical workflow leadership is combined with scalable cloud infrastructure. By building their cloud-native enterprise pathology solution on services like AWS HealthImaging and Amazon Bedrock, Philips is offering their customers the best of both worlds,” said Tehsin Syed, GM of Health AI at AWS. “Secure cloud-based offerings address the growing demand to store and utilize more data, and by digitizing pathology healthcare leaders can apply AI and ML to drive better insights. We look forward to continued work with Philips to help improve productivity, advance research, and ultimately enable more precise and tailored patient care.”