IBM Launches New Population Health Tool
Opening its new IBM Watson Health global headquarters in Cambridge, Mass. on Sept. 10, the Armonk, N.Y.-based organization also introduced a new population health solution.
The tool, IBM Watson Care Manager, is a population health solution that integrates capabilities from Watson Health, Apple's HealthKit and ResearchKit, a software framework designed by Apple to make it easy for researchers to conduct studies using an iPhone. It allows medical professionals’ to factor a broad range of determinants into a personalized patient engagement program, with the intent to vastly improve individual health outcomes, IBM officials say.
In April, at the Chicago-based HIMSS conference this year, IBM announced that it was acquiring population health management vendor Phytel. Then, the organization stated that, “The acquisition, once completed, will bolster the company’s efforts to apply advanced analytics and cognitive computing to help primary care providers, large hospital systems and physician networks improve healthcare quality and effect healthier patient outcomes.”
It was announced at HIMSS that the acquisition of both Phytel and Explorys, a healthcare intelligence cloud firm, will become part of the new Watson Health unit, about which IBM said, “IBM Watson Health is creating a more complete and personalized picture of health, powered by cognitive computing. Now individuals are empowered to understand more about their health, while doctors, researchers, and insurers can make better, faster, and more cost-effective decisions.”
