Amazon Web services will provide $40 million in credit and technical support to organizations committed to improving health and reducing medical inequality within three years.
“Applying modern technology to the health system is not a panacea to end health inequality,” Max Peterson, vice president of the global public sector at Amazon AWS, said in a statement. “But it can accelerate health research and innovation, create a fair competitive environment for access to medical services, help people provide reliable information whenever and wherever needed, optimize the supply chain, and so on.”
The new global plan announced on Monday will run parallel with another plan launched in early 2020 to support COVID-19 -19 diagnostic research and development. AWS supports 87 organizations in 17 countries through the project (AWS diagnostic development initiative).
Organizations operating in three key areas are invited to apply for new initiatives:
“Increase access to health services for underserved communities.” organizations in this area may be supported in their efforts to develop tools to reach marginalized communities through tele health and telemedicine, including remote patient monitoring.
“Addressing social determinants of health.” AWS will support projects that use technology to address health outcomes affected by a wider range of social, economic and environmental factors.
“Use data to promote fairer and more inclusive health systems.” national and global health statistics reports often do not provide complete data on different groups, leading to inequality. AWS will support projects to address this gap.