IBM and the healthcare provider CVS Health have announced a collaboration within the Watson Health project, the version of IBM cognitive computing system specializing in the medical field. In this case, it will be used to improve health care services for patients suffering from chronic diseases.
The medical field is one of the first explored in the tests of the Watson system but in April 2015 IBM decided to create the Watson Health business division exactly in order to develop this kind of applications. Over the last few months several partnerships with companies in the medical field have been announced and now CVS Health joined the project as well.
CVS Health is an American company founded in 1922 as Melville Corporation and, through various acquisitions, changed its name a number of times until the current one was adopted last year. Through a series of business units and subsidiaries, among other things the company runs a pharmacy chain and walk-in medical clinics.
IBM created the platform Watson Health Cloud to collect and securely manage the information used in this project. The system improves thanks to those information and CVS Health has medical information of over 70 million Americans. In essence, the deal is perfect to improve Watson’s ability to manage some key elements regarding chronic diseases.
It’s estimated that chronic diseases such as hypertension, heart diseases, diabetes and obesity are the main causes of death and disability in the USA and represent 86% of the annual medical $2.9 trillion spending. Any improvement could greatly affect this spending and a lot of people’s living conditions.
For this reason, the IBM Watson Health Cloud platform will be used to improve the medical management of various chronic diseases. It will be used to analyze the patients’ symptoms in order to predict the possible risks and start early personalized treatments before the illnesses become serious. Patients will be encouraged to adopt healthy behaviors, also regularly taking prescribed medicines. In suggesting appropriate medical treatment their costs will be considered as well.
The IBM Watson Health Cloud platform will have an optimal interaction with the CVS Health staff and with its patients thanks to various applications. This means that the Watson system will have huge amounts of medical data and a better training with the ability to learn from the CVS Health staff’s skills. It’s another step forward to a higher health care level.
