August 1, 2018
Microsoft Corp. has grown its health unit into a multi-billion-dollar business, the company’s Chief Medical Officer Simon Kos told CNBC’s “Beyond the Valley” podcast in an episode entitled, “Your Health Could Soon Depend on Artificial Intelligence,” according to reporting by Shoshanna Delventhal on the site Investopedia.
“So we’ve got about 14,000 of them [partners] in health care around the world, and for us that means health at Microsoft is a multi-billion-dollar organization growing faster than the market,” said Kos.
In June, Microsoft officially launched its health care unit, intended to draw on the firm’s artificial intelligence and cloud capabilities to build products that modernize IT infrastructures, electronic health records (EHRs) and data analytics capabilities and foster value-based care. The move formalized Microsoft’s research-focused Healthcare NExT initiative, launched in 2017, and added a new emphasis on “strategic partnerships … and driving the cross-company strategy for healthcare and life sciences,” according to a company blog post.
Microsoft’s involvement in the health care space dates back years. In 2014, when the company experimented in the wearables market, it teamed up Twist BioScience on the capabilities of DNA digital data storage, and partnered with University of Pittsburgh Medical Center to build AI-enabled care delivery products, Delventhal writes. The software provider also collaborated with insurer Cigna Corp.
