Alibaba Cloud Launches Imaging Cloud Solution to Build Future-Oriented Smart Healthcare Digital Imaging Services

On December 18, at the launch event for the “2018 Future Healthcare Top 100 – VB100,” Alibaba Cloud unveiled its Imaging Cloud solution. By integrating imaging storage, sharing, and intelligence, and leveraging an ecosystem of joint solution providers, the platform enables the sharing of imaging resources across hospitals at all levels, avoids redundant imaging examinations, supports mobile image review by physicians, and allows patients to access digital images via QR codes, thereby building a future-oriented smart healthcare digital imaging service.

Alibaba Cloud Launches Imaging Cloud Solution

Recently, Zhejiang Province has once again emphasized the importance of digital medical imaging, specifically highlighting the need to advance the application of internet technologies in the healthcare sector. This initiative aims to conserve resources, reduce environmental pollution, and alleviate the burden on patients, thereby deepening the implementation of the “At Most One Visit” reform. Medical institutions will fully implement the digitization, mutual recognition, and sharing of examination and test results, providing patients with comprehensive services such as online queries, mobile push notifications, and SMS reminders.

With the advancement of digital medical imaging, there are increasingly stringent requirements for image storage, interoperability, and security. To better provide digital imaging services, the following challenges must be addressed:1. Insufficient storage space. Large hospitals generate terabytes (TB) of imaging data annually, with data volumes growing year by year.2. Limited real-time availability. Most hospitals adopt a "online-nearline-offline" storage hierarchy, making it difficult to retrieve historical data in a timely manner.3. Lack of information interoperability. For hospital groups and medical consortia, patients often need to undergo repeated imaging examinations when seeking further care. Furthermore, data cannot be seamlessly shared between remote medical services and hospitals at different tiers during referrals.4. The needs of physicians for mobile image review and patients for accessing digital images require scalable storage solutions, rapid image upload and viewing experiences, and comprehensive data security guarantees.

To address the aforementioned industry pain points, Alibaba Cloud, in collaboration with its ecosystem partners, offers an integrated cloud-based imaging solution that spans on-premises and cloud environments, covering storage, sharing, and intelligence. This solution boasts the following advantages: It provides massive, secure storage services with automatic multi-redundant backups for digital images; enables real-time access to historical images; facilitates inter-regional image connectivity and interoperability, supporting referrals and consultations while eliminating the need for patients to undergo repeated imaging scans; allows physicians to review images remotely via mobile devices; and empowers patients to view their digital images. Furthermore, it leverages artificial intelligence technologies to assist in diagnosis, such as intelligent screening for key pulmonary diseases and intelligent grading and feature screening for knee osteoarthritis, thereby unlocking the true value of medical imaging.

Alibaba Cloud’s artificial intelligence, which won the overall championship in the LUNA16 World Pulmonary Nodule Competition, pioneered the implementation of integrated screening for multiple pulmonary diseases at China’s largest health checkup provider and launched the nation’s first AI-powered intelligent imaging product for orthopedics.

In addition, Alibaba Cloud’s Hybrid Cloud Storage Array provides integrated management of on-premises and cloud storage, requiring no interface modifications for local imaging applications. Its massive, secure, and highly reliable tiered storage solution enables healthcare institutions to implement full lifecycle management of medical images conveniently and cost-effectively. For one-time migration of historical imaging data, Alibaba Cloud’s Lightning Cube offers efficient and convenient data migration services.

Currently, Jiande First People’s Hospital has leveraged Alibaba Cloud to provide digital imaging services for patients. Xiang Peng, Vice President of Jiande First People’s Hospital, stated, “Based on Alibaba Cloud’s Imaging Cloud solution, our hospital has achieved resource sharing across all levels of medical services. Patients can scan a QR code to access their imaging data anytime and anywhere. Alibaba Cloud’s tiered storage and rapid network access capabilities have laid the foundation for future smart healthcare digital imaging services.”