Health system execs say AWS is a close competitor to Microsoft Cloud

The news: Health systems are choosing Microsoft Cloud over Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google Cloud, per a KLAS survey of eight provider and payer organizations.

• All eight healthcare organizations surveyed selected Microsoft over AWS and Google for tasks like care coordination, genomics analytics, and digital health platforms for COVID-19 vaccine registration apps.

Digging deeper into the data: Many health systems that use Microsoft Cloud say AWS was a top contender in their cloud vendor selection process.

KLAS evaluated cloud vendors’ key performance indicators including the ability to keep promises, delivery of new technology, executive involvement, and strength of partnership.

• Microsoft Cloud Technologies received an overall performance rating of 86.1 on a 100-point scale, per KLAS.
• Two-thirds of Microsoft Cloud users said its product capabilities are typically not oversold and its cloud solutions are stable.

However, survey respondents said AWS was a “formidable competitor” to Microsoft Cloud.

• Healthcare organizations said AWS’ “continuous innovation” helped them do things with AWS tech they otherwise couldn’t have accomplished with other cloud vendors.
• In fact, about three-fourths of healthcare organizations considered choosing Amazon as their primary cloud provider.
• The organizations likely went with Microsoft since it performed better when it came to executive involvement and “strength of partnership,” per KLAS.

Zooming out: Google lags behind AWS and Microsoft on healthcare cloud market share. But Google’s recent partnerships could shrink that gap.

• Google only holds 8.4% of the $17.19 billion US healthcare cloud market, compared with AWS’ 24.3%, per Insider Intelligence’s estimates.

But as more healthcare systems seek out cloud providers and patient data volume grows, Google could become an attractive option for major health systems as execs are on the hunt for more patient access tools.

• For example, in July, Google Cloud inked a deal with New York-based health system Northwell Health to improve digital scheduling, automate payer interactions, and identify risk factors to improve with early interventions.
• Plus, Google Cloud’s Life Sciences (formerly Google Genomics) can help health systems process their data at scale. It already works with genomics company Color and Broad Institute (home to researchers at Harvard affiliated-hospitals) to rapidly analyze large pools of genomic data.