Google & Flex develop cloud-based platform for medical devices

Google is partnering with connected products designer Flex on a cloud-based platform for medical device analytics.

Designed by Flex and announced ahead of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) conference, BrightInsight is a platform built on Google Cloud that can aggregate data and provide real-time information for connected medical devices.

Kal Patel, senior vice president of Digital Health for Flex, said: “We saw the need for a secure cloud platform designed to support highly-regulated connected drug delivery and medical devices, going beyond simple connectivity to deliver real-time intelligence and actionable insights.”

Information can be stored and analysed on Google Cloud without medical technology customers having to manage a separate platform. Flex states that BrightInsight could be used for controlling connected devices, drug dosing, decision support, personalised patient plans, trend analysis and AI-driven insights.

BrightInsight is designed to support CE-marked and FDA-regulated class I, II and III medical devices as well as software as medical device requirements. The platform will be deployed as a manged service and allows medical technology companies to potentially accelerate their time to market and reduce the cost of implementation and maintenance across products.

Companies using BrightInsight can also potentially reduce regulatory bottlenecks with the FDA by transferring files with the platform.

"Google Cloud is committed to leveraging our deep engineering expertise to accelerate innovation in digital healthcare," said Gregory Moore, vice president, Healthcare, Google Cloud. "With a partner like Flex, we will enable our customers to develop innovative solutions and leverage machine learning-based analytics that can turn new data sets from wearables, medical devices, therapies and apps into actionable information for patients and providers."