Overcoming data challenges in digital health with Snowflake

As an official exhibitor for the upcoming Healthcare Excellence Through Technology (HETT) conference in September, we caught up with Snowflake to discuss the security of patient data.

Snowflake: Snowflake supports healthcare providers with a cloud-based data platform that enables organisations to mobilise their data and collaborate more effectively in delivering personalised patient care.

Snowflake’s platform allows organisations to store, manage and process data and to share their data securely and with full governance controls applied, with other organisations. This enables them to improve the efficiency of their care, achieve cost savings, avoid duplication of efforts and deliver high-value projects that benefit patients and the community.

Beyond health care providers, Snowflake works with research institutions, the insurance and pharmaceutical sectors to further extend our offering in the form of a Healthcare and Life Sciences Data Cloud.

HETT: What are some of the biggest challenges that you have identified when working closely with your NHS/Care partners?

Snowflake: Care providers across the NHS have indicated that a key challenge is not having access to a single source of truth and a unified patient record that can be used across the spectrum of care. Siloed data, legacy systems that can’t handle the demand put on them by analytics departments, and a lack of efficient, secure data sharing capabilities make it hard, if not impossible, for data leaders to deliver some of their digitalisation projects.

For example, NHS Greater Manchester Health and Social Care’s (GMHSCP) analytics and data science platform combines modern technologies that work together to consume data from multiple sources and present it in a single user interface. Snowflake is the core that makes this possible, enabling the organisation to move data around, build new data, and seamlessly present it to end-users. The platform has allowed GMHSCP to understand how it can work with huge amounts of data, quickly, and use that speed of delivery to support front-line operations with rapid reporting.

HETT: Tell us how working with your products and solutions can help tackle some of the challenges that exist within digital health.

Snowflake: Healthcare and life sciences organisations are under immense pressure to navigate a dynamic and highly regulated landscape. Widespread reliance on legacy technology, stringent compliance requirements, and a lack of common data-sharing models have complicated the industries’ ability to capitalise on available data and insights. Expanding health data volumes, increasing usage of artificial intelligence (AI) and analytics in medical innovation, and the digitalisation of the healthcare value chain are impacting the healthcare industry. Organisations have an accelerated need for an agile, interoperable, and secure data solution, which Snowflake is delivering.

Snowflake wants to help organisations move to the next level by providing a single data platform for their data, where patient data is kept secure and satisfies industry regulations, with the flexibility of sharing it with relevant partner organisations.

HETT: As HETT Show approaches (27-28 Sept @ExCeL London), tell us what you are looking forward to the most at HETT Show 2022.

Snowflake: Connecting with healthcare professionals and learning more about their current data challenges and the projects they are working on.

HETT: Thank you for your time today. It’s been a pleasure catching up with you and learning more about how Snowflake contributes to the evolution of the healthcare sector. We look forward to seeing you at HETT Show (27th & 28th September, ExCeL London)!