Accelerating Remote Device Registration from Hours to Minutes Using AWS IoT with Siemens Healthineers Ultrasound

Siemens Healthineers Ultrasound works to expand patient access to care worldwide through innovations, including remote equipment management. The Ultrasound team began building the Kinectus solution on AWS in 2021. The team uses several AWS services, including AWS IoT Core, which can connect, manage, and scale device fleets, to power Kinectus. “Using AWS IoT Core, it was simple to move from an idea to a Kinectus proof of concept in a very short time,” says Scott Kumono, product manager for Kinectus at Siemens Healthineers.

The company uses AWS Systems Manager, a service for managing resources on AWS and in multicloud and hybrid environments, to simplify management for the connected ultrasound machines. Cybersecurity is another major concern for healthcare systems using remote connections—especially when handling medical information. Siemens Healthineers Ultrasound secures data from its remotely connected ultrasound machines to storage on Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3), object storage built to retrieve any amount of data from anywhere.

To further enhance what its engineers and customers can do remotely, Siemens Healthineers Ultrasound began developing new features. For example, it launched near real-time screen sharing using Amazon Chime—a communications service to meet, chat, and place business calls—so its expert technicians can access customer machines. This functionality allows technicians to remotely assess problems with the machine before making a visit, often removing the need to send an engineer in person. “Without remote access, the work requires at least one if not multiple on-site visits by our customer service engineers,” says Kumono. “Customers are interested in minimizing their system downtime.”

Throughout the collaboration and development of Kinectus, Siemens Healthineers Ultrasound received technical and educational support from the AWS team on how to use AWS services to improve its use cases. “We try to understand customers’ pain points and then build our requirements around that,” says Kumono. “We choose AWS services that we can use to deliver
what our customers need.”  

On AWS, Siemens Healthineers Ultrasound accelerated the process of registering new devices to the cloud from as long as 2 hours to only 5 minutes. “We took a task that used to be time-consuming and complicated, with interfaces between multiple teams, and we streamlined it,” says Kumono. “And with the device connected, we can more efficiently deliver services to our customers.”   

Siemens Healthineers Ultrasound uses its remote access capabilities on AWS to get close to its customers wherever they are. “This is where Kinectus comes into play. We’re increasing efficiency, reducing friction, and getting results to the customer faster,” says Kumono. The company can perform updates for safety recalls remotely instead of sending an employee
to update every piece of equipment on site.  

Meanwhile, Siemens Healthineers Ultrasound is enhancing log collection and data search. The company wanted to give support agents the information they needed before they started talking to a customer. With the right information, agents can understand the issue, send the necessary product information, and even fix issues remotely.

Siemens Healthineers Ultrasound is also developing features using Amazon Q Business, a generative AI–powered assistant that can answer questions, provide summaries, and generate content based on data and information in enterprise systems. When a customer has a question about the ultrasound system or they want to see specifications on a part of the equipment, they’d previously have to search the 1,000-page user manual or call the customer support agents and wait for an answer. The Amazon Q Business chatbot eliminates a significant amount of manual work for customers. “By using AI, we’re enhancing the delivery of service and clinical support,” says Kumono. “We’re reducing the friction because the sonographer or physician has access to the information immediately.” As a result, customers can focus on patient care and other important tasks.

With a secure foundation on AWS, Siemens Healthineers Ultrasound has the capability to streamline software distribution. Instead of scheduling an on-site visit and taking the device away from the customer to update it, the company can implement remote updates. “With Kinectus, we can remotely connect,” says Kumono. “We could mass distribute software to Kinectus. Now, we’re trying to do more.”

With a goal of continuing to improve the customer experience, Siemens Healthineers Ultrasound is looking for more opportunities to enhance its infrastructure using AWS. The company also plans to expand its use of AI so that it can be more proactive about distributing software and helping customers.  

“AWS provides a customer-first service delivery that fits with what we strive to offer customers,” says Kumono. “It’s a very similar culture to how we care about our customers.”

“We are thrilled with our ongoing collaboration with AWS,” says Fabien Schut, head of ultrasound customer service. “Kinectus significantly enhances our customers’ experience by reducing their downtime and improving cybersecurity, letting them focus on patient care. This is only the start of our journey, and we are excited about Kinectus’s potential to transform the way healthcare providers operate their ultrasound fleet.”