Seattle-based Truveta will leverage Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform to analyze health data under a new partnership with the software giant announced Wednesday.
Microsoft is also investing an undisclosed amount in Truveta, which emerged in stealth last year and already has more than 100 employees.
Truveta has access to health data representing 15% of the United States through its 17 members of the health system. Microsoft and Truveta will work together to build the customer base and membership of the Truveta healthcare system.
Truveta’s CEO is Terry Myerson, a former Microsoft executive who led the company’s Windows and Devices Group before departing in 2018 after a 21-year career at the tech giant.
“He understands the company, he understands the DNA, he understands the values,” said Tom McGuinness, Microsoft’s corporate vice president, global health and life sciences, in an interview with GeekWire. “There is deep confidence in the alignment of our business model.”
The partnership comes on the heels of a $ 95 million investment in Truveta in July by its healthcare partners. These include Providence, the largest healthcare system in Washington state, which participated in the formation of the company.
Truveta collects unidentified data from these providers, which cover most states and a racially and ethnically diverse population.
Health data is in demand by medical providers, as well as pharmaceutical companies and academic researchers developing new tools and treatments. Linking treatments to outcomes and underlying health may allow researchers to better understand the effectiveness of health interventions.
Ultimately, Truveta will allow researchers “to learn how to better treat patients and help families make more informed decisions about their care,” Myerson told GeekWire. Truveta will not use the data for advertising directed at patients or doctors.
The company also aims to develop capabilities to analyze data in real time. The pandemic highlighted the need for such an approach, which can allow researchers to quickly identify which interventions work most effectively.
Researchers within Truveta member health systems are beginning to query the data sets, which can be ready for wider use by clients in a matter of months.
McGuinness said the Truveta data will create value in three ways. “First, doctors will be able to make better decisions for their patients with existing therapies. Second, it will enable pharmaceutical companies to develop better therapies for tomorrow,” McGuinness said. “Ultimately, it will support payers to make sure that reimbursement really helps ensure that the strongest health care outcomes can be brought to its members.”
Truveta has a strong emphasis on privacy and de-identifies data in accordance with guidelines issued by the United States government. “It’s a massive amount of data and a massive liability,” Myerson said.
The data will be stored on the Microsoft cloud platform in partnership with Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare. That service combines Microsoft’s cloud services, such as Microsoft 365, Teams, and Azure, with components designed for the healthcare industry.
Microsoft’s platform provides storage flexibility and scalability, but also advanced development and analytical tools, said McGuinness, who joined the tech giant last year after a stint as president and CEO of GE Healthcare Imaging. Existing Microsoft customers include Humana, Allscripts, Premera Blue Cross, the UK National Health Service, and the pharmaceutical company Novartis.
“AI is the highest priority in technology, and healthcare is its most important application,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in a video. “There is an incredible opportunity to turn the enormous amount of health data generated every day into information for researchers, physicians, and most importantly, patients.”
The software giant also has the prospect of helping Truveta grow, Myerson said. Microsoft is a “partner with global reach and global thoughts on security audits and global thoughts on privacy,” he said. That will help Truveta build its international presence.
“Truveta has momentum in the United States,” Myerson added. But by registering new healthcare partners in all other words, the company can provide more comprehensive data sets on human health. “This is a glob. We want to include all the diversity on the planet. “al opportunity
