AWS Announces $10 Million to Accelerate Pediatric Research
Amazon Web Services’ new funding, the Children’s Health Innovation Award or Imagine Grant, will provide $7 million for cloud-based data sources for pediatric research, total maternal and child health and strengthening the pediatric workforce and healthcare providers, according to an announcement Wednesday on the AWS has been done. summit in Washington DC
In addition, AWS has awarded three hospitals $1 million each to children’s hospitals that research and treat pediatric cancer and develop tools and applications to improve screening for rare genetic diseases.
WHY IT MATTERS
Pediatric medical research is limited by limited resources and limited sample sizes, as parents faced with the diagnosis of a rare disease in their child can well attest. Children with cancer and other rare diseases often follow treatment plans adapted from adult protocols.
In particular, identifying genomic aspects of rare cancers requires significant computing power. However, most registered pediatric studies are small, single-center, and unfunded, which AWS says slows progress in developing more effective treatments.
Access to cloud services, such as secure data repositories that manage de-identified and de-identified data, and artificial intelligence engines, could help move the needle, AWS explains in a rack on her website.
By empowering nonprofits with data-driven insights, researchers can better understand the genetic makeup of diseases and doctors can improve patient outcomes and experiences with more personalized treatments, the cloud giant said.
The $10 million initiative will support a consortium of hospitals and other institutions using cloud computing and AI tools to accelerate research and discovery. AWS has opened $7 million to organizations for projects that accelerate pediatric research, advance total maternal and child health, or strengthen the pediatric workforce and healthcare providers.
The $3 million awarded by AWS through Imagine grants will be split among three organizations: Children’s National Hospital in Washington, DC; Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio; and the Children’s Brain Tumor Network, based at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
Nationwide computes anonymized genomic data from pediatric cancer patients, the NCI Childhood Cancer Database, in a large study of pediatric cancer patients in the U.S. that researchers across the country can access – in near real time, AWS says.
“What we really want to do is make rare cancers less rare by providing this comprehensive information to those who really want to research for a variety of discovery-driven goals,” said Elaine Mardis, co-executive director of the Steve and Cindy Rasmussen Institute for Genomic Medicine in the Abigail Wexner Research Institute at Nationwide Children’s Hospital, in a statement.
“What drives discovery in the most immediate term is enabled by the cloud.”
Using AI, Children’s National Hospital is screening babies for rare genetic conditions by assessing facial features using smartphone cameras to identify subtle changes in those features soon after birth. Researchers are testing the application on patients in 30 countries to help screen children who may not have access to a genetic counselor nearby, AWS said.
THE BIG TREND
According to Black Book Research, in 2018, 93% of hospital chief information officers were actively recruiting to develop HIPAA-compliant, next-generation cloud infrastructure.
Technology can better support pediatric care, according to Dr. William Hay, Jr., chief medical officer of precision medicine company Astarte Medical.
“People have too often assumed that children are little adults with little problems,” he said IT news in healthcare in October.
“Children’s medical conditions are just as complex as those in adults, and many, probably most, prepare the child for complications later in life.”
Children with medical complexity make up less than 1% of all American children, but contribute to one-third of all pediatric health care costsAccording to Hay, their conditions require “extensive evaluation, collection and analysis of extraordinary amounts of data” to prevent negative health outcomes.
ON THE RECORD
“We are so excited about the initiative that AWS is launching because it aligns so perfectly with our story that, despite being a rare disease, pediatric cancer truly provides a unique testing ground for new technologies due to their reliance on real-time discovery and collaboration. networks,” Adam Resnick, director of the Center for Data-Driven Discovery in Biomedicine at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, said in the AWS statement.
Andrea Fox is Editor-in-Chief of Healthcare IT News.
Email: afox@himss.org
Healthcare IT News is a publication of HIMSS Media.
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