Tag: health equity

Today, AWS announced the 11 participants chosen for the AWS Healthcare Accelerator Australia/New Zealand for Aged Care and Digital Health. The cohort is developing a range of solutions, using the power of the cloud, to improve equitable access to health, social, and aged care services; support aged care and health service providers to deliver higher quality care; and promote new and productive ways of delivering services.

Sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) is the number one cause of death for student athletes and the leading cause of death on school campuses. The nonprofit Who We Play For (WWPF) advocates for SCA prevention through advocacy, automated external defibrillator (AED) placement, cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) training, and heart screenings, which include low-cost electrocardiogram (ECG) screenings from physicians that are experts in pediatric ECG interpretation. To scale their efforts, WWPF collaborated with AWS to build a ML solution to help extend the chance to get screened for SCA to every young person, potentially saving many lives each year.

AWS announced the 10 finalists for the 2022 AWS Healthcare Accelerator focused on improving health equity. This year’s cohort brought forward innovative ideas that will improve access to care, provide actionable health equity data, expand access to medical transport, and help people without a home reach housing and health goals. Over the course of the four-week Accelerator program, these 10 startups will receive technical and business mentorship from AWS and KidsX experts, up to $25,000 in AWS Computing Credits, and collaboration opportunities with AWS healthcare customers, industry leaders, and members of AWS Partner Network (APN) looking for healthcare solutions.

eVisit’s role as a participant in the AWS Health Equity Initiative provided me with the opportunity to serve as a panelist at this year’s AWS Summit Washington, DC in May. I presented alongside other AWS health equity program partners to outline our collective efforts to increase access to healthcare services in underserved communities, reduce disparities by addressing social determinants of health (SDoH), and leverage data to promote equitable systems of care.

At AWS, we believe the cloud can help address long-standing social and structural disparities that impact health outcomes. That’s why we have chosen to focus the next AWS Healthcare Accelerator on health equity. Launching today, this accelerator builds on our larger focus on this issue that includes a $40M commitment we made last September to support customers developing solutions to reduce health inequities. The AWS Healthcare Accelerator, delivered in collaboration with KidsX, aims to empower all startups that focus on improving health equity.

Today marks World Health Day, and this year’s theme is “Our planet, our health.” The World Health Organization (WHO) is using this day to drive global attention to the urgent actions needed to protect our planet and prioritize well-being in societies, and supporting these efforts is core to our principles and values at AWS. We’re proud to support our customers and partners who are solving some of society’s biggest problems with the cloud to make these ideas and changes a reality. Here are just a few examples of how our customers are leveraging AWS technology to innovate for our planet and our health.

At AWS, we know these are challenging times and we remain committed to supporting nonprofits. This blog post outlines a sampling of programs and resources for nonprofits, including grants and credits, open data access, cloud training, educational events, and more, designed to enable organizations of all sizes to overcome barriers to technology adoption, while enhancing the scale, performance, and capabilities of mission operations.

The UC Davis Health Cloud Innovation Center (CIC) will focus on digital health equity and will use Amazon’s Working Backwards principles and methodologies to improve health outcomes and reduce health disparities. The CIC will allow clinicians or clinical care providers, patients, and developers to exchange ideas, as well as prototype and validate open-source solutions focused on making digital health more equitable and accessible worldwide. Among the 13 AWS CICs globally, this will be the first CIC based at an academic medical center.

Across Canada, hospitals, care providers, academic health sciences centers, and more are using accessible, scalable technology to support their staff and provide faster, better access to citizens in need of care. With Amazon Alexa, patients only need their voice to answer a few questions and get started towards healing.

AWS is announcing a new global program to support organizations working to enhance health outcomes for underserved or underrepresented communities. We are providing AWS credits and technical expertise, committing $40 million over three years to help organizations develop solutions to improve health outcomes.