Electronic health record (EHR) vendor MEDITECH is bringing its MEDITECH-as-a-Service (MaaS) subscription model to the African and Middle East markets, announcing the offering this week at the Hospital Association of South Africa conference in Cape Town.

MaaS is built on Google Cloud and enables the company to offer a fully managed and monitored cloud-hosted solution with a single monthly fee.

MEDITECH first announced it was working with Google Cloud to bring its Expanse EHR and a suite of other applications to the cloud in 2020.

The MEDITECH cloud platform includes a new set of cloud-hosted applications, including the Expanse NOW mobility app for doctors, a Virtual Care solution, and a High Availability Snapshot, which provides healthcare organisations with immediate access to key patient data in the event of unexpected or planned downtime.

In 2021, MEDITECH announced that Google Cloud will provide additional options aligned with the MaaS subscription model, which will enable cost-effective, rapid and easy implementation of EHR technologies.

MEDITECH South Africa managing director Dr Sushanth Pillai said MaaS is already being offered to customers across North America and the United Kingdom and elsewhere in Asia Pacific.

“We are excited to bring MaaS to the African and Middle East markets in partnership with Google Cloud,” Dr Pillai said.

Dr Pillai said MaaS is a traditional as a service model and includes licence fees, ongoing support and maintenance, as well as fully managed and monitored cloud hosting, all in one fee. Implementation services will still be offered as a standalone on a capital expenditure (capex) model, so the product will be implemented in the traditional fashion.

“MEDITECH in Africa and Google Cloud are working to bring the power of AI to improve outcomes of patients by distilling the dense, complex and sometimes manual health records for clinicians,” said Jack Ngare, Technical Director, Office of the CTO, Google Cloud. “In addition, we are jointly addressing the challenges in modernisation, digitisation and privacy of data in the healthcare industry. Africa has very little legacy systems in this field, which presents a valuable opportunity for our two companies to improve care for the 1.4 billion people on the continent.”

MaaS hosted on Google Cloud will also give local customers access to the new set of applications, including Expanse Patient Connect, which facilitates automated, proactive communication with patients through their preferred channel, including text, e-mail and phone, as well as Expanse NOW, Virtual Care and High Availability SnapShot.