Today, we’re sharing more about cyberattacks we’ve seen from a Russian nation-state actor targeting Ukraine and steps we’ve taken to disrupt it.
We recently observed attacks targeting Ukrainian entities from Strontium, a Russian GRU-connected actor we have tracked for years. This week, we were able to disrupt some of Strontium’s attacks on targets in Ukraine. On Wednesday April 6th, we obtained a court order authorizing us to take control of seven internet domains Strontium was using to conduct these attacks. We have since re-directed these domains to a sinkhole controlled by Microsoft, enabling us to mitigate Strontium’s current use of these domains and enable victim notifications.
Strontium was using this infrastructure to target Ukrainian institutions including media organizations. It was also targeting government institutions and think tanks in the United States and the European Union involved in foreign policy. We believe Strontium was attempting to establish long-term access to the systems of its targets, provide tactical support for the physical invasion and exfiltrate sensitive information. We have notified Ukraine’s government about the activity we detected and the action we’ve taken.
This disruption is part of an ongoing long-term investment, started in 2016, to take legal and technical action to seize infrastructure being used by Strontium. We have established a legal process that enables us to obtain rapid court decisions for this work. Prior to this week, we had taken action through this process 15 times to seize control of more than 100 Strontium controlled domains.
The Strontium attacks are just a small part of the activity we have seen in Ukraine. Before the Russian invasion, our teams began working around the clock to help organizations in Ukraine, including government agencies, defend against an onslaught of cyberwarfare that has escalated since the invasion began and has continued relentlessly. Since then, we have observed nearly all of Russia’s nation-state actors engaged in the ongoing full-scale offensive against Ukraine’s government and critical infrastructure, and we continue to work closely with government and organizations of all kinds in Ukraine to help them defend against this onslaught. In the coming weeks we expect to provide a more comprehensive look at the scope of the cyberwar in Ukraine.
Epilepsy is a chronic noncommunicable disease of the brain affecting 50 million people and making it one of the most common neurological diseases globally, according to WHO.
With proper diagnoses and treatment, 70 percent of people living with epilepsy could live seizure free, making access to appropriate care and detection of upmost importance.
Seizures can create challenges for the independence and day-to-day lives of people living with epilepsy. They can also lead to driving collisions, with 0.2 percent of traffic accidents linked to a form of seizure. A team at University of Sydney, led by Dr. Omid Kavehei, set out to answer an important question, “Can we improve the accuracy of seizure detection in epilepsy and can we predict a future seizure?”
According to the law in New South Walkes, Australia – home to the University of Sydney, people with epilepsy must be seizure free for at least 12 months to drive. This seizure free declaration is often based on a rough conversation between a patient and their clinician, with the clinician certifying they have been seizure free for a set period of time and patient reports. Given it’s not uncommon for patients to not remember seizures, or not have a family member or caretaker around with them, the certification process can lead to inaccurate outcomes. The researchers saw an opportunity to challenge the status quo and help clinicians make data-driven decisions.
Despite a great deal of research and development in the last few decades, statistics of epilepsy remain almost unchanged. For example, still about 35 percent of diagnosed or confirmed epilepsy patients are going to have a long and difficult journey towards falling into the epilepsy treatment gap, where there are no available nor suitable treatment for them. “The percentage has not changed over time, it’s the same in 2022 as it was in 1990s. The current methods are clearly not working if we have not been able to improve that statistic despite some major understandings about the underlying disease and the brain,” Omid shares.
The aim became predicting seizures with a good level of accuracy, leading to further investigations in the field. Should a seizure be predicted before it occurs? Would the administration of an anti-epileptic drug, that otherwise might not have been helpful, trigger a different outcome? A whole sphere of ideas was shaping up as they undertook the research. Their project was awarded an AI for Accessibility grant to investigate seizure prevention and prediction with the help of AI.
The first hurdle was access to data. As Omid explains, “We need democratic access to data. No data, no research.” By partnering with the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, the researchers were able to access this data, with proper patient consent. “Data should belong to the patients and we should be considered as custodians of it. Equally, research should be facilitated and most patients have no problem with that concept. If we limit access to data inequitably, we limit the opportunity for the next breakthroughs, which can often come from an unexpected source and person. This is doubly important if the data in question was produced using a form of publicly funded research or development. Exclusivity of that data beyond a certain point is neither understandable nor fair to the patients who volunteer so that data becomes available.”
For successful seizure prediction, the team at University of Sydney needed to extract specific biomarkers from this data, specifically detecting biomarkers that indicate abnormalities in the brain activity. The rate of those incidents and density would represent the onset of a seizure. Existing documentation shows the brain senses when a seizure is about to happen, and it works in order to stop it. From a practical standpoint, clinicians and researchers should be able to seek repetitive and consistent patterns of data in the brain before a seizure. In developing their AI model, they partnered with the head of neurology at the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital, as well as additional neurologists and epileptologists to test the performance of the model and understand if it led to any conclusive results.
In developing the AI model, the problem they overwhelmingly faced was the retrospective research; creating issues in training the algorithm with the same dataset as the one they wished to test on. They switched to a perspective approach, which takes the view of no knowledge of when a seizure is happening with no data available. The forecasting systems start out as less accurate, but combined with detection systems, it improves over time and more importantly it becomes patient specific. Two papers were published on the research: Continental generalization of an AI system for clinical seizure recognition and A multimodal AI system for out-of-distribution generalization of seizure detection.
Current data collection is through the help of a high number of electrodes connected to the patient. The next dilemma for this body of research is to understand if they can reduce the number of electrodes and compensate for it through the AI model. “We wish for seizure prediction to continue to improve. The research we are doing is impacting real people, it’s not just a theoretical puzzle to solve. We are in touch with people from all over the world, their stories are profound and real – from a patient who need supervised assistance going up or down the stairs, to another who fears holding their infant baby over potential accidents during a seizure. What we wish to give back to the community is independence,” states Omid.
Enabling increased independence for those with epilepsy is top of mind and heart for Francesca Fedeli and Roberto D’Angelo, co-founders of FightTheStroke Foundation, who set out to help their son, Mario. At the 2019 Microsoft Hackathon, they developed MirrorHR, an epilepsy research app available in 13 languages and is used daily by hundreds of families across 31 countries.
Digital systems around the world generate a staggering 2.5 quintillion bytes of new data every day.1 While this information is generally stored in large data silos where it can be easily accessed by users, industries have been harvesting their data for years to make themselves more efficient and effective.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) enables data holders to transform a passive resource into a powerful catalyst for accelerated growth. For instance, when the state of Nebraska realized that it was spending approximately 655,000 staff hours per year to collect data reports from every school in the territory—an effort that yielded surprisingly few benefits—the Nebraska Department of Education set out to build a Statewide Longitudinal Data System that would allow information to flow in near-real-time from hundreds of sources and deliver actionable insights to state, district, and school leaders; administrators; and educators.
Despite the noticeable positive impact, until recently, the education sector had been relatively slow to embrace digitalization and the use of data and AI to accelerate learning. However, COVID-19 created an urgent need for education systems to use their data to gain visibility into who was engaging in remote learning and where education was taking place. Education leaders the world over were motivated to take decisive action and schools began to make the transition to online learning as quickly as possible.
“Throughout the COVID-19 response we understood clearly the importance of having data in order to measure the impact of this unprecedented disruption to education,” observed Stefania Giannini, Assistant Director-General for Education at UNESCO.
Today, many institutions have settled into a blended or hybrid learning model and want to see what other benefits their digital framework can offer. Using cloud technology enables them to gain visibility and accelerate the impact of teaching and learning systems.
Microsoft Teams employs data analytics for faster results
Education Insights, a feature in Microsoft Teams for Education, is a great example of this. It uses data analytics to keep educators informed of students’ engagement, learning progress, and well-being. A wide range of built-in digital apps and tools allows teachers to interact with learners on the platform and gain an overview of how well they are progressing, both at the class and individual levels.
One such tool is Reading Progress, a literacy solution that enables students to record themselves while reading aloud. The program makes a note of all the words that are challenging to the reader and provides visual aids and additional reading exercises to help them improve. Best of all, Reading Progress saves teachers hours of time spent evaluating students one at a time. It also allows teachers to take a personalized approach to teaching by addressing each student’s needs individually.
“Given the power and centrality of literacy in conferring future outcomes, we are very proud of Reading Progress, and we are excited to continue to build on it and do even more,” said Steve Liffick, Vice President Modern Life and Learning.
Understanding how data and AI works
Among the key benefits of cloud technology are that it allows institutions to retain full ownership of their student data as well as receive expert support from partner technology companies on how to integrate security protocols and create governing policies around that data. Last year, UNESCO’s member states adopted the first-ever global agreement on the ethics of AI. The document outlines a framework for the ethical use of AI including a chapter that is specifically focused on the ethics of AI in education.
UNESCO has been at the forefront of the international response to the global education crisis since the beginning, launching the Global Education Coalition in early 2020. The platform brought together more than 175 members from the UN family, civil society, academia, and the private sector to protect the right to education during the pandemic and beyond. Members are united under the coalition’s three flagships: connectivity, teachers, and gender. “We’ve noticed that in many countries girls have been left behind,” said Stefania. “Filling the gender gap is something that UNESCO has been focusing on since the beginning of the pandemic.”
“In order to ensure that all children are able to receive the benefits of education analytics and AI, all children have to participate in digital learning” observes Paige Johnson, Vice President, Microsoft Education Marketing. “As long as some children are still operating in the analog world, you risk creating Big Data systems that leave those children out of the thinking and the work.”
Another aspect to consider is that in order to benefit from big data systems, all students must take part in digital learning—otherwise, education leaders run the risk of excluding certain learners from the data and the solutions such learning enables. This is why equipping every student with a digital device is the first step to implementing a successful data and AI strategy.
Helsinki was the first capital city to recognize the importance of having a digitalization strategy for education. In 2016, city officials set out to make Helsinki the most impactful place for learning in the world. Working with Microsoft, the city’s Education Division used Azure to build a powerful AI hub capable of enhancing teaching and learning across a wide range of pedagogical use cases. The team’s primary focus was to create a personalized learning experience for each of their students, all while improving learning outcomes and placing an emphasis on well-being.
Open Education Analytics brings data and AI to every system
Open Education Analytics is an open source program created by Microsoft to support every education system’s unique journey with data and AI. The program was launched as a response to the urgent need for visibility into what was happening with education systems at the onset of the pandemic, especially as those systems moved more and more to digital learning platforms. “We realized in that moment that we needed to accelerate our support for our customers’ data and AI journeys,” said Maria Langworthy, Principal Program Manager at Microsoft.
The four components that make up the Open Education Analytics program are a set of open-source technical resources, a comprehensive curriculum on data engineering and data science training, Microsoft’s principles for responsible AI, and a global community of education systems developing shared use cases.
Each pillar is designed to solve specific challenges to digitalization and to empower education systems to navigate their way forward. As Maria noted, “It’s not just data and a lot of dashboards. It’s about how you use this data to make better decisions, to better utilize your resources to really push learning progress.”
Leveraging data with EMIS
“Our goal with Microsoft Education Data and AI programs is to meet every education system where they are today and to help them move forward, [in order] to better leverage the data that they have using our modern data and AI services,” said Louise Macquet, EMIS Cloud Business Development Lead, Microsoft MEA.
The Education Management Information System (EMIS) is designed to enable education systems to effectively collect, store, manage and report their data.
It does this through an open-source common data model for education that provides systematic consistency for data and supports education systems to develop applications and integrators more quickly to operate across multiple systems more easily. “The common data model was developed by Microsoft and founding partners to eliminate data silos for a connected engaged platform producing efficient and real-time data,” explained Louise.
In order to empower education leaders across the world to accelerate the digital transformation of their systems and achieve meaningful impact in education, Microsoft created the Leaders in Digital Transformation of Education program. Join the program today and sign up for the Data and AI Accelerator to harness the power of your student learning data in real time for optimal results.
Every year in the month of April, we celebrate Earth Day. Living in the Pacific Northwest, as the snow begins to melt and the landscape brightens, I reflect on what a privilege it is to live in such a beautiful place. The theme for this year’s global Earth Day is “Invest in Our Planet,” and I believe it represents such an important reminder for us all – to invest. So, when the time comes to celebrate the Earth and recognize the amazing progress Microsoft and our partners are making to reduce our carbon footprints, change business practices to be more environmentally responsible and create more sustainable products, I jump at the opportunity.
I’m so proud of the commitments our Microsoft device partners are making with sustainability. The innovation our partners bring to this important initiative is nothing short of remarkable. From devices made with sustainable materials to Earth-conscious manufacturing and shipping processes, it is exciting to see these investments really making a difference. Here are some great examples from our device partners:
Acer kept sustainability top-of-mind in each decision that went into creating the Aspire Vero. The laptop uses 30% recycled plastic in the chassis and 50% recycled plastic on the keyboard caps, reducing C02 emissions by approximately 21%. In addition, no paint is used on the chassis’ surface. The Aspire Vero is also easily repairable and upgradable, a feature that allows for more longevity and keeps more laptops out of landfills. Features like Acer’s VeroSense software provide a usage mode that’s optimized for energy efficiency and battery life. The laptop is EPEAT Silver certified, meaning it meets a significant list of environmental criteria, and the 100% recyclable packaging earned it a 2021 Red Dot Award for Brand & Communication Design. The neutral grey cover and yellow pigment dots give it a unique and distinctly eco-friendly look. Beneath the Aspire Vero’s stylish exterior are powerful features including an 11th Gen Intel Core i7 processor with Intel Iris Xe graphics to power through daily productivity tasks. The 512GB of M.2 SSD storage gives plenty of space to store music and files, and you can watch videos clearly with the 15.6-inch FHD IPS display. And finally, for those of us working with less-than-ideal background noise levels, you can have your voice heard clearly on video calls with AI noise suppression.
The ExpertBook B9 from ASUS is an exceptional work-from-anywhere device that ships to you with sustainability in mind. The lightweight but durable 1.94-pound device includes an Intel Core vPro i7 processor and gives you a long lasting battery that charges up to 60% in 45 minutes. A spill-resistant and backlit keyboard with ASUS NumberPad lets you work comfortably in a variety of environments, and you can both hear and be heard clearly in meetings with Harman Kardon speakers and ASUS noise-cancelling technology to eliminate background noise. ASUS reduces their environmental footprint by optimizing their packaging and shipping practices. A report found that only 5% of plastic packaging was effectively recycled so ASUS uses cardboard cartons made of 85% to over 90% recycled paper. To continue in the spirit of Reduce, Reuse and Recycle, the accessory boxes are designed to be converted into laptop stands, extending the life cycle of the packaging. Thoughtful considerations for their packaging material’s size, weight and the way they’re stacked improve transportation energy utilization which indirectly reduces carbon emissions during transport. Learn more about their sustainable packaging practices.
The Dell Latitude 5000 series is a business laptop and Dell’s most sustainable laptop yet – featuring several intentional sustainable design choices using recycled and renewable materials. Beginning with the base, the system is created with 20% reclaimed carbon fiber and new bio-based rubber feet that’s made from castor bean oil (39%), a renewable material that reduces reliance on petroleum-based materials. Then, to make an even larger sustainability impact, Dell focused on the second heaviest part of the device – the lid, using 71% recyclable and renewable materials including 21% tree-based bioplastic upcycled from the paper-making industry, 20% reclaimed carbon fiber and 30% post-consumer recycled plastic. This series also marks an important milestone in Dell’s use of ocean-bound plastics. To expand beyond Dell’s existing use in device packaging, the Latitude 5000 series also incorporates 28% ocean-bound plastics in the fan housing. The importance of sustainability for Dell extends beyond just the device itself, with the Latitude 5000 series featuring packaging made from 100% recycled or renewable materials – all of which is 100% recyclable. As Dell’s highest volume PC in production and sales, the Latitude 5000 series delivers that sustainable impact at scale.
Dynabook’s Satellite Pro C40-J with Windows 11 Pro is a sleek and budget-friendly professional laptop with energy savings built into its design. It strikes the ideal balance of performance and portability with a 14-inch thin bezel display, a powerful 11th Gen Intel Core processor, and all of the productivity tools, data protection and encryption measures that come with Windows 11. Dynabook’s efforts to produce products sustainably extends throughout their device’s life cycle from procurement to manufacturing, distribution, usage and disposal. They use their own solar power generation system to create their devices, and save on power consumption and CO2 by miniaturizing circuit boards and components. Their packaging is recyclable and the devices themselves are even designed to be easily taken apart and recycled at the end of their life cycle.
The responsibly made HP Elite Dragonfly G3 with Windows 11 Pro and a 12th Gen Intel processor was designed so that mobile professionals don’t have to compromise performance to have a positive environmental impact. This lightweight laptop was thoughtfully designed so that multiple components contain eco-friendly materials, including recycled magnesium in its cover, ocean-bound plastic in the speaker enclosure, and 50% recycled plastics in the keycaps. The outer box packaging is also 100% sustainably sourced. Enhanced by HP Presence, the device delivers a better way to collaborate with others during meetings. Users can be seen clearly with a 5MP camera with HP Auto Frame which keeps users in frame so they can break free from their desk, and with mask-wearing and hybrid work environments in mind, Dynamic Voice Leveling helps to optimize voice clarity.
The latest 7th gen Lenovo Yoga 6 (13 inch, 7) with Windows 11 offers all the favorite features we’ve come to love from premium Yoga devices, plus some impressive measures crafted with sustainability in mind, making it a win-win for you and the planet. Designed for portability and premium entertainment, the specs include up to an AMD Ryzen 7 5700U processor, 13-inch Full HD 16:10 ratio touchscreen display for crisp picture quality and Dolby Vision, and two front-facing speakers with Dolby Atmos for an impressive sound experience. It’s made with recycled materials, including a cover made from recycled aluminum or a fabric-wrapped cover option made with 50% recycled plastics. The Yoga 6 is also free of mercury and arsenic, and is brominated flame retardant (BFR) free, and comes ENERGY STAR and EPEAT Silver certified for meeting energy saving and environmental standards. Nearly 25% of Yoga 6’s battery cells use post-consumption plastic, and the laptop’s packaging is the “greenest” ever offered by Yoga, using sustainable paper packaging from responsibly managed and FSC certified forests.
To go along with these sustainably made laptops, the MeetUp Bundle for Microsoft Teams Rooms is Logitech’s compact, yet powerful premier ConferenceCam solution designed for small conference and huddle rooms. With 120-degree field-of-view, a 4K ultra high-def sensor, three beamforming mics and a custom-tuned speaker, your meetings will look and sound their best. Logitech’s industry-leading commitment to environmental sustainability is delivered through its actions in designing for sustainability, carbon labeling, increased recycled plastic use and other carbon neutrality efforts. MeetUp highlights this commitment with its 100% use of renewable energy in its manufacturing, and its carbon-neutral certification for the product and packaging. Logitech’s Climate Positive Approach has resulted in a 20% reduction of carbon per dollar of revenue since 2019 and that number continues to grow.
The TOUGHBOOK 55 is a semi-rugged laptop designed to be used by first-line workers and first responders working in arduous and severe conditions. Its sustainability comes from its modular design that can be highly customized for the needs of its user, reducing waste and improving the ability for repairs and upgrades to the laptop. Its rugged build means it will stand up to heavy wear and tear and increase its longevity beyond a typical laptop. It reduces energy consumption with a long 19-hour battery life, reducing the number of charge cycles. The TOUGHBOOK 55 is a secured-core PC powered by Windows with several Intel processor options. Additional features include the ability to mount in a car for users like first responders and other mobile professionals who need a powerful device on-the-go, plus it supports three different touch modes, includes a backlit keyboard and has four microphones for unmatched speech recognition.
Razer, known for their powerful gaming devices like the recently launched Razer Blade series powered by the latest processors from AMD and Intel along with Windows 11, has committed to sustainability with their ambitious 10-year roadmap called Go Green with Razer. Beginning with their use of device materials like recyclable CNC milled aluminum and post-consumer recycled plastics, as well as only conflict-free minerals and raw materials in their manufacturing process, Razer has pledged to use recycled or recyclable materials in all products by 2030. Customers are encouraged to return their old Razer products to their stores for free-of-charge recycling, and by 2025 Razer will have enabled consumer disposal and recycling of their products globally. Their commitment extends beyond products into their office spaces, investments into sustainable startups, and the global community. And for fans of their popular sustainability mascot, Sneki Snek – for every Sneki Snek eco-merchandise sold, Razer contributes to Conservation International (CI) to save 10 trees. Razer has recently surpassed their original goal of saving 1 million trees, and has announced a new goal of 10 million trees. To date they’ve conserved over 600 acres of forests. Read more about Go Green with Razer.
Samsung’s brand-new Galaxy Book2 series advances Samsung’s ongoing commitment to minimize its environmental footprint and help Galaxy users adopt more sustainable lifestyles. The series, which includes the Galaxy Book2 Pro 360, Galaxy Book2 Pro and Galaxy Book2 360, includes all the powerful and beautifully designed features we’re used to seeing from Samsung. The PCs also feature Samsung’s recently announced eco-conscious material that repurposes ocean-bound plastics, such as discarded fishing nets, to reduce plastic waste in the ocean. The material is now featured in the touchpad holder and the inner bracket of the Galaxy Book2 Pro series, as well as parts in its Galaxy S22 and Tab S8 portfolio. The need to frequently replace laptop batteries is reduced by new innovative algorithms created to extend the battery lifecycles and lower standby power. The AMOLED display used on the Galaxy Book2 series not only provides a vibrant picture quality, but is GREENGUARD gold certified for eco-conscious products by the Underwriters Laboratories for minimizing VOC emissions for improved indoor air quality. All of Samsung’s PCs are Energy Star rated to help reduce energy usage and subsequent CO2 emissions, helping consumers avoid an estimated 270 million metric tons of CO2 emissions globally since 2009.
I feel so fortunate to work with these partners on such an important mission. As we begin this month, especially focused on sustainability and environmental responsibility, I am truly looking forward to seeing these materials and practices become widely adopted across our industry and am so proud to see our Microsoft device partners really lean in to make a difference for our planet.
This blog has been co-authored by Steve Kearney, PharmD, Global Medical Director, SAS.
This blog is part of a series in collaboration with our partners and customers leveraging the newly announced Azure Health Data Services. Azure Health Data Services, a platform as a service (PaaS) offering designed to support Protected Health Information (PHI) in the cloud, is a new way of working with unified data—providing care teams with a platform to support both transactional and analytical workloads from the same data store and enabling cloud computing to transform how we develop and deliver AI across the healthcare ecosystem.
There is a dichotomy in health care technology. Despite new developments in imaging, diagnostics, treatment, and surgical techniques, the lack of data standardization in the industry has trapped health insights in functional silos. Providers and payers alike struggle to manually reconcile incompatible file formats, which slows the transfer of information and negatively impacts quality care and patient experience.
Microsoft, along with partners such as global analytics software company SAS, are driving towards increased interoperability through enabling the use of standards such as Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR®). Together, SAS and Microsoft Azure are building deep technology integrations that unlock value by making disparate data and advanced analytics more accessible to health and life science organizations. With new capabilities such as the integration from Azure Health Data Services to SAS on Azure, the embedded AI capabilities of SAS Health are more efficient and secure, expanding the possibilities of patient-centric innovation and trusted collaboration across the health landscape.
FHIR puts the patient at the center of the health care ecosystem. When querying information in the previous HL7 format, the query is answered with the entire patient dataset that must be parsed to find the information desired for predictive modeling. Additionally, data would require harmonization within and across the organization, creating limitations on available data. In contrast, harmonized FHIR datasets persisting on Azure Health Data Services enable FHIR-based requests directed to the specific data points required, speeding up queries to near-real-time and protecting patient data.
While FHIR’s footprint in the industry is small compared to HL7’s, the global adoption of the FHIR standard is growing. Major electronic health records (EHR) companies like Cerner and Epic are moving quickly to support FHIR.1 Notably in the United States, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has mandated its use for health insurance payers and providers.
Transform your analytical experience in the health cloud
The integration between Azure Health Data Services and SAS Health can be transformational for organizations who have struggled to operationalize analytics. Not only does this integration offer a technology that is secure, fast, and scalable, it democratizes analytics by allowing the business or clinical user to query a patient data set using a pre-set parameter or algorithm and return results within a clinical workflow.
The traditional view of health analytics is that it occurs outside the process of care and is in some way removed from the patient. That’s changing, thanks to secure health cloud environments like Azure Health Data Services and presents the opportunity for more real-time integration of patient and claims data. With the evolution of the citizen data scientist and respective interoperability, we now see a clearer path from analytics to improved health care outcomes.
The graphic below illustrates the role of health data analytic interoperability in health and life sciences. Ultimately, the use of diverse health data throughout the process of care in a shared cloud environment will enable better outcomes for us all.
SAS Health and Azure Health Data Services
The embedded-AI capabilities of SAS Health running on FHIR data ingested through Azure Health Data Services provide game-changing advantages across health care delivery and research.
Providers
SAS Health on FHIR gives speedy access to analytic insights within EHRs, parsing out only the information needed, allowing near-real-time results from, for example, pharmacy claims, laboratory results, or imaging. Predictive insights such as medication adherence or emerging health risks are more available through a secure FHIR-based exchange. Quality care and patient satisfaction increase when providers can integrate data across multiple systems and record types including patient records and claims data into a single view.
Payers
Payers governed by CMS are already mandated to transition to FHIR-based communication standards and are experiencing early wins. For example, adjudication of claims is one of the most time-consuming parts of the payer process. With FHIR, payers can securely query patient records to determine medical necessity of a service or procedure and whether appropriate authorization was obtained, cutting time dramatically in the process. With FHIR’s extensibility beyond the payer-provider core, pharmacy data can be queried to inform proactive disease management programs with specialty drugs and more real-time formulary approvals to meet patient needs.
Academic researchers
For clinical research, data sharing can be a common, time-consuming obstacle. FHIR-ready datasets can accelerate the generation of new health insights and expand the universe of data types for research, including social determinants of health, real-world data, genetics, device data from the internet of medical things, and more.
Ultimately, these innovations in health data analytic interoperability can make insights faster across the vast ecosystem of professionals who are committed to a healthier world. While technology is only one part of the solution, improving health begins with predicting future health risks and taking proactive steps to mitigate disease and promote physical and mental wellness.
Do more with your data with Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare
With Azure Health Data Services, health organizations can transform their patient experience, discover new insights with the power of machine learning and AI, and manage PHI data with confidence. Enable your data for the future of healthcare innovation with Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare.
We look forward to being your partner as you build the future of health.
®FHIR is a registered trademark of Health Level Seven International, registered in the U.S. Trademark Office and are used with their permission.
The healthcare industry has been accelerating its digital transformation journey—addressing challenges to meet the needs of patients, providers, and payors. At the heart of this evolution is the need to connect disparate data sources to unlock end-to-end views of patients and resources. Capitalizing on this further is the opportunity for real-time communication and collaboration tools to improve coordination and information flow. Our approach is centered on these needs, enabling healthcare organizations to bring data and information flows together with rich insights and experiences that enable them to improve patient care and operations
As part of this focus, we are announcing new previews and general availability updates to Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare. This release reflects customer and partner feedback and deepens our commitment to helping healthcare providers and patients:
Better navigate data through enhancing patient engagement.
Empower team collaboration.
Improve clinical and operational insights.
Enable further expansion of the global availability of our Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare solutions.
A holistic and connected view of your patients
Getting a 360-degree view of patients is essential for providing quality care. Our updated unified patient view is capable of displaying demographic and clinical data across our solutions. Healthcare teams can see relevant information faster through better visualizations. We aggregate data sources into actionable patient insights, allowing the provider to identify care gaps based on patient demographics and clinical data. Access to clinical and non-clinical form information can also be determined by security roles.
The new unified patient view standalone offering enables end-to-end scenarios leveraging low code solutions from Microsoft Power Apps, enabling providers and partners to create custom applications with consistent patient views. Learn how to build model-driven applications.
Figure 1: Non-clinical patient information view.Figure 2: Clinical form highlights important patient information.
Solving the common issue of fragmented and multiple records for a single patient, we now offer better support for Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) record merge capabilities. The new, generally available patient links enables the ability to view “rolled-up” patient data. Administrators and patient data specialists can now maintain Health Level Seven (HL7) FHIR® patient links (merge patients).
Figure 3: Consolidated patient resources are shown in a patient record, with access to linked records.
We are making it easy for clinicians to cut through the clutter of fragmented systems so they can focus on providing the best possible care using data from a variety of sources. Virtual Visit for Teams integration into Cerner Electric Health Records (EHR), now generally available, allows clinicians to easily launch a virtual patient visit directly from Cerner EHR. Embedded in the solution includes capabilities such as the ability to track if SMS notifications have been sent to the patient or to copy and re-send visit links.
Figure 4: Clinician view of patient information connected to on deck virtual visit.
Bringing data together
The volume of data produced by the healthcare industry from disparate sources including legacy systems is often large, unstructured, and not universally accessible. How healthcare organizations capture, store, interact, and leverage data is critical for clinical and operational effectiveness—both to enable insights and experiences. As such, data is at the very core of Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare. To help healthcare organizations improve insights, regardless of where the data resides, Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare helps customers structure their data with the healthcare data model and the Azure Health data services.
Our newly released Azure Health Data Services is technology for Protected Health Information (PHI) in the cloud. It is also one of the only generally available solutions of its kind to ingest, manage, and transform a combination of clinical, imaging, and MedTech data formats into other data standards like Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) and Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM). While other solutions exist for clinical and imaging data, Azure Health Data Services provides the most holistic view of the patient by unifying these three key types of health data. With Azure Health Data Services,you can bring together diverse datasets and streaming data from medical devices in the cloud.
Making sure data can be shared securely for research and AI development is what will bring about truly powerful change. Azure Health Data Services creates a strong cloud foundation for big data, which makes deep AI and machine learning possible. Azure Health Data Services can connect to Microsoft Power BI and Azure Synapse Analytics for visualizations and analytics, use SMART on FHIR apps to build new applications, and apply machine learning to create new algorithms for diagnosis assistance and research. As we look to the future, we also are building strong strategic partnerships with key health technology start-ups such as Truveta to integrate lifesaving and democratizing capabilities. Our recent acquisition of Nuance further brings AI, machine learning, and other leading-edge capabilities to Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare.
Optimize data footprints with real-time data routing
When utilizing data to support business processes, such as a patient service center, organizations often ingest data from multiple systems. No single system hosts all the data—and controlling how much data is duplicated between systems is a priority to ensure efficient technology architecture. Today we are announcing the release of virtual health data tables. This capability optimizes the cloud storage spend, allowing organizations to virtualize their clinical reference data when using model-driven applications. Health data can remain where it is, or it can be transferred to Microsoft Dataverse, which allows organizations to securely store and manage data that can easily be used by business applications. This new feature takes advantage of Dataverse virtual tables combined with a health data routing concept, allowing dynamic switching of the underlying data source between native Dataverse storage and direct access to external Azure Health Data Services for select healthcare tables. For more details, read our FAQ.
Figure 5: Power Platform App can fetch data from Dataverse or do an external real-time fetch from other sources, including Azure Health Data Services.
Dataverse Health Data Exchange API, upcoming preview in May, is a new data interoperability method that allows organizations to move data between cloud for healthcare solutions and health information systems, that expose data as FHIR Bundles. These features work in environments with or without FHIR server implementations. With the Dataverse Health Data Exchange API, organizations get full control of the integration architecture, rules, and logic.
Figure 6: New integration approach providing improved interoperability while protecting patient data. Figure 7: Production environment using Logic App Workflows, Azure Storage and Azure Service Bus Queue.
Work intuitively with natural language processing
Organizations can further leverage analytics through natural language processing to improve the delivery of clinical insights with our preview release of Text Analytics free text to FHIR feature. This enables healthcare organizations to find and label valuable information in unstructured clinical documents, transforming them into bundles of interconnected, hierarchical FHIR resources that adhere to core FHIR guidelines.
Figure 8: Text analytics entity recognition and linking, relation extraction and assertion detection.
Empower your healthcare team with collaborative tools
Care managers often manage hundreds of patients with limited time; they need clear visibility into planned activities and tasks to better organize their day. The need for timely touchpoints with patients to support care plan adherence is part of our collaboration focus. We are delivering a more focused workplace for care coordinators to help organize their appointments and follow-ups with intuitive charts to understand progress, upcoming activities, and immediate next actions. We are releasing a new Care Plan Activities Dashboard, in preview, that provides care coordinator and care management views with filtering capabilities.
Figure 9: Care Plan Activities Dashboard includes actionable charts and data for care managers and coordinators.
As part of our investment to help onboard new team members quickly and keep the whole workforce aligned, we are releasing guided tours. This feature is immediately available in the Care Management solution and will be available in other solutions in future updates. Organizations can onboard new users and highlight new features with ease—including in-app guides that describe frequently used features and scenarios. Users can continue to interact with the solution in the background as they are guided through the product. The homepage also provides how-to guides and resources to help the care coordination teams make the most of the care management solution and increase job satisfaction.
Figure 10: Guided Tours for Care Management view.
We enable organizations to build and deploy AI-powered, compliant, and white-labeled experiences at scale. Last month we announced new templates for Azure Health Bot, our intelligent and industry-relevant conversational service, to quickly build custom scenarios for popular healthcare use cases—saving teams valuable time and ensuring consistent quality of care. Azure Health Bot allows healthcare organizations to instantly build bot scenarios for collecting secure and compliant responses directly from patients for use cases like triage, flu vaccinations, and more. This release expands the catalog with new templates for self-reporting of quality-of-life measures and chronic condition management.
Figure 11: Azure Health Bot Scenario Template Catalog.
Healthcare organizations can accelerate their business processes by automating information extraction; applying AI and machine learning frameworks that utilize analytics data to assist in many different processes. With Azure Forms Recognizer, patients can take photos of their identifications and insurance cards and submit them before arriving at their appointments, reducing data capture errors and manual effort. Learn how customers like HCA Healthcare are using Azure Forms Recognizer to cut down on administrative time spent entering repetitive card data into their care system
Where we’re headed: A global commitment
Microsoft is committed to supporting customers around the globe. Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare previously available in eight countries is expanding our offering to include another nine countries—Switzerland, Brazil, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Belgium, Ireland, New Zealand, and the Philippines. Further, as part of our commitment to providing a complete product experience, healthcare solutions are now available in ten languages: English, French, Dutch, German, Danish, Italian, Swedish, Finnish, Spanish, and Brazilian Portuguese.
Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare is continually expanding its ability to provide a unified approach that enables healthcare organizations to compete and grow through greater efficiency and improved patient and workforce experiences—ultimately resulting in delivery of care faster, better, and at a lower cost. We are excited about how this series of updates builds on our strong foundation, and for our continued future investment in healthcare. You can learn more about Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare by signing up to stay informed and following us on social.
FHIR® is the registered trademark of HL7 and is used with the permission of HL7.
Big news for enthusiasts of digital ink—Journal, a Garage project, is now Microsoft Journal.
Microsoft Journal, an app for Windows, offers a delightful freeform personal notetaking experience that lets you take notes and reason through ink.
Thank you for using Journal as a Garage project. Your input has shaped it into what Microsoft Journal is today.
What makes Journal special?
Gorgeous page-based canvas designed for pen Feel how simple it is to capture your thoughts in ink using Windows tablets, 2-in-1s, and other touch-focused, pen capable devices.
Modeless editing Edit and create fluidly without switching tools by using AI driven gestures like scratchout and instant lasso.
Semantic smart ink Stay organized by doing things that come naturally, like underlining headings, creating lists, or marking important items with stars. Journal’s AI recognizes and uses those gestures in a powerful faceted search—ways to filter your content by the smart ink Journal detects—so you can easily find your content.
Meeting notes Tie your notes directly to meetings with Journal’s Microsoft 365 calendar integration so it’s easy to keep track of your conversations and decisions.
On-device artificial intelligence
The AI in Journal recognizes editing and semantic gestures quickly and seamlessly on the device. No need to be online. This makes your Journal experiences super-fast and it’s great for your privacy, too.
“We are entering an age of computer-aided reasoning, where AI accelerates the tasks that people do, and makes us all more productive. Journal shows just how powerful an experience can be when software anticipates your intentions. This is just the beginning.”
–Stevie Bathiche, Technical Fellow and leader of Microsoft’s Applied Sciences
Windows 11 design
In concert with this exciting news, you get Microsoft Journal in the Windows 11 look and feel, with all new colors and materials. This new release rolls out between April 5th and April 8th. If you want it now, get it from the Microsoft Store.
What the Journal team learned in The Garage
Microsoft never knows the contents of your journals, but general usage data helps the team understand how Journal adds value and where to make improvements. Since Journal launched as a Microsoft Garage project last year, the Journal team learned—by looking at the data—how important it is to intentionally design interactions for digital ink experiences. They also learned that inking is much more than just writing content, it’s also about annotating content, like PDFs.
For example, the Journal team explored how you can select content without needing to switch into a selection mode, which could break your flow. Experimenting with different ways for people to select content, the team expected to identify a clear winner, but instead learned—while people have preferences—all the ways you can naturally interact with content using touch and pen are useful.
The Journal team also validated their hypothesis that annotation of documents is a key scenario for people who ink. After all, in a world of paper, people scrawl notes on everything. The data shows that over half the pages created in Journal are imported from PDF.
“Journal works for people who think in ink, because its design is focused on that tactile, intimate experience people have when they use a pen. In turn, usage data helps focus us on driving that experience forward.”
–Jacques Chamberland, Principal Program Manager of the Journal team
The future
Being a supported Microsoft app means having a plan. The Journal team listens to your feedback and has plans to address the most common requests and a backlog of new features.
“Being a supported Microsoft app means having a plan. The Journal team listens to your feedback and has plans to address the most common requests and a big backlog of new features.”
–Oz Solomon, Principal Engineering Manager of the Journal team
Try Microsoft Journal
Join us to celebrate by downloading Journal, for free, from the Microsoft Store. Journal works on both Windows 10 and Windows 11 devices.
Let the Journal team know what you think by sharing your feedback in the Windows Feedback Hub.
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The new flood defences in Preston – comprised of flood walls, the use of glass panels and embankments – aim to reduce the risk of a 2015-style disaster.
Andy Brown (right), Area Flooding Coastal Risk Manager for the Environment Agency in Lancashire, said: “Flooding is a significant issue here in Lancashire but also more broadly across the country, and it’s one that’s going to get bigger and harder, so it’s really important that we all focus on it and understand it.
“Minecraft is helping us engage with the public on how we manage flood and coastal erosion in the context of climate change. It helps young people in particular understand what’s going on and their part in it, because they are the ones who are going to face the hardest impacts of the climate emergency.
“One of the brilliant aspects of this collaboration with Minecraft is that these games are going to be available around the world. If we can stimulate just a small number of people to think: ‘my career of choice is something in science, technology, engineering or maths that relates to managing flood risk in the future’, then that will be a great success for us.”
The journey from playing to learning is something that Minecraft excels in. It’s also why the Environment Agency and Minecraft approached BlockBuilders, Brighton-based experts in creating immersive worlds, to build Rivercraft.
Megan Leckie, Co-founder and Co-director of BlockBuilders, helps pupils at Archbishop Temple School to explore the Rivercraft world
Megan Leckie, Co-founder and Co-director of BlockBuilders, watched the Archbishop Temple School class as they explored the replica of Preston that her company had spent four months creating.
She said: “We got the 3D data of Preston, which is freely available online, and turned it into a Minecraft world. But that data creates generic buildings, so we collected screenshots and imagery of Preston and added details to the structures to replicate how they are in real life. When the children were exploring, they felt a connection to this place in Minecraft because it looked exactly like their city. They are fully immersed in this experience.”
At an aquafarm on Ecuador’s coast, the shrimp were famished.
Workers there toiled to provide ample nourishment to the hungry crustaceans, repeatedly maneuvering their small boats across the farm’s ponds to hand feed the underwater colony. Despite their best efforts, it wasn’t enough. The shrimp, on average, reached only 65% of their normal weight.
So the aquafarm’s operator, Omar Portugal, decided to listen to the shrimp. He dropped a hydrophone into the water to eavesdrop as they ate.
Pescanova’s aquafarm in Ecuador.
Working with Microsoft, Portugal and his team also adopted new software, added more data-gathering sensors, and floated several automated feeding stations atop the shrimp pond at the Marfrisco Aquafarm. The facility is one of numerous farms operated around the world by Nueva Pescanova, a Spain-based company specializing in the fishing, farming, processing and sale of seafood products.
Turns out, it was noisy below the pond’s surface.
The hydrophone detected chewing sounds – sounds full of data. The software translated that crunchy cacophony into algorithms. Next, those algorithms were uploaded to a platform built with Artificial Intelligence services from Microsoft, as well as Microsoft 365, Azure and Azure IoT. And that platform – dubbed Smartfarm – told the feeding stations precisely how much food to sprinkle into the water.
Smartfarm solved the underfeeding issue. The shrimp soon plumped up to a normal weight.
Healthy shrimp at Pescanova’s aquafarm.
“This was one of the problems we needed to solve using technology, but also to ensure that our farmers wouldn’t be left behind,” said Portugal, general manager of Marfrisco Aquafarm.
Smartfarm is the first solution to emerge from a 2021 collaboration agreement between Nueva Pescanova and Microsoft. The platform interprets an array of data gathered by sensors – from oxygen levels to shrimp per square meter – then provides insights and alerts to help aquafarmers maximize harvests, sustainability and animal welfare.
An automated feeding station floats atop a Pescanova shrimp pond.
By using Smartfarm’s data-fueled insights, Portugal says he made more informed decisions about how to better sustain his colony. Meanwhile, his workers are busier than ever, using their boats to check the automatic feeders and the system’s connectivity. The aquafarm has even hired additional workers.
As proof, shrimp survival rates climbed from 50% to 80%. At the same time, shrimp yields increased from 800 to 3,200 kilos per acre.
Pescanova employees review the latest data insights from their aquafarm.
That’s a crucial outcome when it comes to ongoing efforts to feed the world. Each year, global seafood consumption grows by about 4%, says Ignacio Gonzalez, CEO of Nueva Pescanova.
“It’s clear the sea cannot supply more fish,” Gonzalez says.
Pescanova aquafarmers prepare to harvest shrimp.
As a result, in 10 to 15 years, an estimated 60 percent of the world’s seafood will be grown and harvested via aquaculture, Gonzales explains. Aquaculture involves the breeding and raising of fish, shellfish and plants that are farmed in water.
“Sustainability is not just a strategy for the company,” Gonzalez says. “It is the strategy of the company.”
