IBM’s newly formed Watson Health division announced its entrance into personalized medicine via DNA translation, and integration of the cognitive computing system with electronic health records (EHR).
The company is partnering with more than a dozen cancer institutes to personalize treatment via DNA. The goal is to understand a genetic profile and gather medical literature to come up with treatments. The institutes that will participate in this endeavor include Cleveland Clinic, Duke Cancer Institute, New York Genome Center, Yale Cancer Center and the Fred & Pamela Buffett Cancer Center in Omaha, Nebraska, among others.
Epic will embed Watson’s cognitive computing capabilities into its decision support offerings via application programming interfaces (APIs).“This collaboration is about giving clinicians the ability to do for a broader population what is currently only available to a small number — identify personalized, precision cancer treatments,” said Steve Harvey, vice president, IBM Watson Health. “The technology that we’re applying to this challenge brings the power of cognitive computing to bear on one of the most urgent and pressing issues of our time — the fight against cancer — in a way that has never before been possible.”
In addition, the Watson Health has also announced cooperation with Epic, which provides electronic health record (EHR) technology, and the Mayo Clinic to integrate Watson and EHRs. According to IBM, patients and providers could benefit from more rapid and thorough analysis of the medical factors that could impact an individual’s health and wellness.
As part of the deal, Epic will embed Watson’s cognitive computing capabilities into its decision support offerings via application programming interfaces (APIs) to extend clinician expertise, and help caregivers access knowledge more quickly.
Epic has more than 350 customers — some of the largest and most-recognized healthcare systems in the world — and they exchanged more than 80 million medical records in the last 12 months, both within and outside the Epic community.