Microsoft is working with Providence St. Joseph CEO Rod Hochman said the chain would adapt an existing facility in the Seattle area, near Microsoft's headquarters. The two companies have discussed their vision for a "hospital of the future" for months, Hochman said, including during several one-on-ones with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. The move is part of Microsoft's latest run at the health-care business after previous efforts, including hospital IT software called Amalga, failed to gain much traction. Meanwhile Apple, Amazon and Alphabet are also looking into the $3.5 trillion sector, but with different areas of focus, ranging from clinical trials to medical devices. The strategic priorities for the new effort involve improving the electronic medical record so that it's easier for doctors, nurses and other health providers to find and share information.

Joseph Health today announced a multi-year strategic alliance to accelerate the digital transformation of health care. The alliance will combine the power of Microsoft's cloud, artificial intelligence (AI), research capabilities, and collaboration tools with the clinical expertise and care environments of Providence St. The two organizations will develop a portfolio of integrated solutions designed to improve health outcomes and reduce the total cost of care by combining technologies from Microsoft with Providence St. The alliance will accelerate the health care industry's adoption of the cloud and enable data-driven clinical and operational decision-making by leveraging Microsoft Azure, and industry interoperability standards like FHIR, to integrate siloed data sources in a cloud environment that enables security and compliance. This site will enable modern clinical and operational experiences for both patients and providers.

BOSTON – The daily deluge of depressing headlines notwithstanding, it should be heartening to know that "if you look at the data, the world is not going to hell in a handbasket," said Dr. Amy Compton-Phillips, executive vice president and chief clinical officer at Seattle-base Providence St. Indeed, said Compton-Phillips in the opening keynote of the HIMSS Machine Learning and AI for Healthcare event here in Boston, if one looks at the numbers for global health and life expectancy, there's been a steady and significant improvement of worldwide well-being over the past half-century. "Of all the times to be alive on earth, the best time is now," she said. "It just doesn't always feel that way." And the primary reason things have improved to that extent? Not just raw data, but the use of that data to tell stories that enable positive changes – and the way those stories can in turn enable a deeper understanding of what those data insights are telling us. "We've been doing well because of the scientific method: seeing how we are, applying learning and then improving," said Compton-Phillips.

Joseph Health is already proving that artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies can have a meaningful impact on the delivery of healthcare today. The Renton, Washington-based health system, which operates 51 hospitals across Alaska, Washington, Oregon, California, New Mexico, Montana and Texas, has created a variety of systems built on AI and machine learning. For instance, its No Show technology is already generating a monthly return on investment through increased patient arrivals. Its Medicaid risk stratification model is being used by its care management teams to find cases. And its natural language processing systems around spinal fusion and brain tumor surgeries have enabled new use cases for and enterprise-wide tool built to identify practice styles that optimize outcomes and cost.