IBM Watson Health and the American Diabetes Association have created a long-term partnership to combine the cognitive computing of Watson with the extensive storehouse of diabetes clinical data and research, the companies announced Sunday at the American Diabetes Association’s 76th annual Scientific Sessions event in New Orleans.
The partnership is meant to develop tools that enable the diabetes community to make use of the vast amount of clinical, research and lifestyle data, according to the announcement. The organization will also use the Watson platform to address factors that contribute to patient outcomes.
"For more than 75 years, the American Diabetes Association has promoted a data-driven approach to clinical care and disease management because we know it can significantly improve people’s lives while also reducing healthcare costs," Kevin L. Hagan, CEO of the association said in a statement.
"By combining the association's enormous body of valuable data with Watson's cognitive computing capabilities,” he added, “we’ll empower people living with diabetes, clinicians and researchers with better data and better insights, which ultimately can lead to better outcomes."
Using Watson, the research team will create a cognitive diabetes database to create personalized treatment plans and improve care management. According to the release, providers can use this database to identify potential risk factors for their patients based on comparisons to populations found in the database.
Furthermore, the research team plans to create a cloud-based data and insights platform for data scientists, which will leverage Watson and the association’s data to aid in the discovery of hidden patterns and potentially identify better therapies for diabetes patients.
The companies also announced a challenge to encourage cognitive app developments to support patients at risk or living with diabetes. According to the release, developers are invited to proposed cognitive apps to the association that could leverage the organization’s database.
Developers can submit their ideas this summer and can learn more about the challenge by visiting the website.
"As the science of diabetes advances, big data presents a tremendous opportunity in diabetes care and prevention,” Kyu Rhee, MD, chief health officer at IBM Watson Health, said in a statement. “But patients, caregivers and healthcare providers need access to cognitive tools that can help them translate that big data into action.”
“Our collective goal is to provide the motivation, the tools and the insights to transform clinical care, self-management and accelerate scientific breakthroughs," he added.
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