Microsoft joins forces with AXA for ‘one-stop’ digital healthcare platform.
One of Europe’s leading insurance companies AXA has announced it has formed a partnership with Microsoft and is launching an international digital health platform on the back of successful pilot schemes in Italy and Germany last year.
Longevity.Technology: Accelerated by Internet of Things and COVID-19, the digital health platform sector is ramping up. The demand for non-siloed information that is stored safely and used intelligently is growing all the time, as is the need for personalised health care. With health expenditure outpacing GDP growth over the next 15 years in almost every OECD country, health services providers must be mindful of delivering platforms that max out integration, while maintaining a competitive price point. This new platform will become acquisitive for tech and customers, meaning good news for future M&A and the future of the sector.
Now available to AXA customers in Germany and Italy, the platform is planned for roll-out in the UK, Belgium, Spain and Switzerland by 2022, followed by other countries worldwide.
Working towards a one-stop, all-in-one approach, the platform will include a self-assessment tool, teleconsultation and medical concierge for appointment booking, digital document vault and a directory of healthcare professionals. Also available will be home care services such as medicine delivery.
The new platform will rely on the tech portfolio in the Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare, which includes Azure API for FHIR (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources); this enables patient insights without compromising patient privacy.
Tina Woods, CEO Longevity International, APPG for LongevityAXA and Microsoft hope that the platform will break down health service silos and foster improvements in research, treatments and disease prevention.
Hailing the development as “the next generation standard of health and well-being services,” AXA said in a statement that the platform “simplifies healthcare journeys and empowers customers with access to a fully integrated ecosystem [1].”
Describing the platform as providing an “e-health experience”, AXA said it is “tailored to the care offerings and specificities of local health networks” with plans to “allow integration of third-party services, with the ambition of creating an open, global service for healthcare providers and patients, regardless of whether they are AXA customers [1].”
Thomas Buberl, AXA CEO said: “AXA is a world leader in healthcare. Our objectives in this field are among the top priorities of our Driving Progress 2023 strategic plan. This ambition is further strengthened today in the face of the current historic worldwide public health crisis.
“In many countries, the fragmentation, complexity and costs of health systems are a barrier to access to care. This new ecosystem of services that we have developed with Microsoft is a powerful lever to provide customers with access to the best healthcare solutions. It also illustrates the decisive role of AXA’s technological expertise in the success of its Payer to Partner strategy [1].”
Longevity.Technology reached out to Tina Woods, CEO Longevity International, APPG for Longevity (leading Open Life Data Framework) and author of Live Longer with AI for her reaction to the news.
“Prevention is always better than the best cure,” she told us. “The AXA/Microsoft platform is potentially a gamechanger in driving a culture of health and wellbeing while lessening our reliance on healthcare systems that treat us when we are ill. It would inform much needed research on people at earlier stages of their health journeys and collect data to help us understand how to keep them well across their lifecourse, including what motivates them to adopt healthier behaviours and which interventions reduce risk most at both individual and population health levels.
“An open platform could encourage wider data sharing in key research areas, including biomarkers of ageing to furnish insights on the interconnectivity of chronic diseases including dementia; aided with AI this could lead to an exponential growth of predictive risk strategies and interventions to delay physical and cognitive decline and increase pandemic resilience. Data diversity is a crucial consideration, however, and a key risk to manage to ensure research keeps focussed on those populations who need most support to keep healthy and not only those who are already well supported and motivated.”
