June 18, 2020 -- Johns Hopkins Medicine (JHM) today announced a five-year relationship with Microsoft Corp. centered on Microsoft’s Azure and analytical tools that will support new discoveries, as part of JHM’s inHealth precision medicine initiative. The work will bring together JHM’s leading global research expertise with the power of Microsoft Azure and its artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities and flexible infrastructure to advance JHM’s discoveries that will benefit personalized health care. Johns Hopkins will maintain total control over its data.

inHealth embodies Johns Hopkins’ commitment to precision medicine, using new tools to understand and manage patients’ health, informed by their broader health history and environment. This program integrates JHM’s longstanding leadership in health care research and delivery with the expertise of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering and Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab.

In support of inHealth, JHM has established 16 Precision Medicine Centers of Excellence, where researchers are pursuing breakthroughs in numerous disease settings, such as prostate cancer and multiple sclerosis. Hopkins aims to have 50 centers over the next five years.

“Johns Hopkins is committed to leading the way in precision medicine, and our relationship with Microsoft will help us achieve that goal,” said Paul B. Rothman, M.D., CEO of JHM and the Frances Watt Baker, M.D., and Lenox D. Baker Jr., M.D., Dean of the Medical Faculty. “Using Azure will improve our ability to develop innovative solutions and treatments for our patients, and we are excited to collaborate with Microsoft to push the boundaries of science and medicine even further.”

Ethical use of patient data is a cornerstone of all of Johns Hopkins’ partnerships with patients, including this important work with Microsoft in precision medicine. All projects are compliant with all appropriate privacy regulations, and Johns Hopkins maintains strict control over all data, including through the use of its Institutional Review Board and its internal Data Trust Council, which reviews data use across JHM.

“It is a distinct privilege to partner with many of the world’s leading physicians, scientists and engineers at JHM as they use Microsoft Azure and its AI and machine learning capabilities to support some of the most advanced research and breakthroughs in precision medicine,” said Gregory Moore, M.D., Ph.D., Corporate Vice President of Microsoft Health. “I’m inspired by the collaboration and its bold goals to improve health for all by bringing together some of the world’s best minds in medicine and technology to deliver the future of medical science innovation.”

Johns Hopkins has previously used Microsoft services as the medical institution developed its pioneering Precision Medicine Analytics Platform (PMAP), a highly innovative data platform that allows collection and analysis information from a broad array of sources in a secure environment. This new agreement will enable inHealth to expand use of other Microsoft resources, such as advanced services, artificial intelligence, machine learning and analytics.

For more information about Johns Hopkins Medicine precision medicine work and inHealth, click here.

About Johns Hopkins inHealth

inHealth is Johns Hopkins’ strategic, interdisciplinary approach to precision medicine, developing patient-level insights that will improve health care. This “whole person” approach to precision medicine strengthens the patient-clinician relationship by contextualizing clinicians’ understanding of the disease state with the broader health history and environment of the patient. inHealth integrates Johns Hopkins’ expertise in medicine, public health, engineering and nursing, along with the Applied Physics Laboratory, to create a data infrastructure that enables us to accelerate medical discovery and optimize health care. This also allows clinicians to understand patient trajectories in real time, guiding prognosis and therapy. Leveraging a set of disease-focused Centers of Excellence, inHealth acknowledges that as our insights into human health deepen, so, too, do our opportunities to apply our knowledge beyond our own patient population through the development of therapeutics, diagnostics and medical devices that will transform health care delivery across the world.