IBM And CVS Health Want Watson To Manage Your Diabetes

U.S.-based healthcare company CVS Health is teaming up with software giant IBM to provide better health care management services to patients diagnosed with chronic diseases. Earlier this year, the company launched its Watson Health business unit offering cloud-based access to Watson for use on healthcare data.

The partnership could have a major impact on those with chronic diseases. It also has more than 1,00 walk-in clinics and over 70 million members of benefit plans.

The jointly developed technology will be optimized for use across a range of chronic conditions – hypertension, heart disease, diabetes, asthma and obesity, for example – and will include the ability to identify individuals at risk for declining health, with an eye toward getting them involved in proactive programs, the companies said. The HIPAA-compliant Watson Health Cloud will enable secure access to individualized patient insights and a more complete picture of the many factors that can affect people’s health.

IBM’s Watson is used in healthcare, financial services, retail and education. It then combines the patient data with an aggregated view of clinical, research and social health data.

“The capabilities of the IBM Watson Health Cloud, when coupled with CVS Health’s insights into medical utilization and patient behavior, could prove transformative for the industry”, Mike Rhodin, senior vice president at IBM Watson, told Forbes.

Suggesting appropriate use of cost-effective primary care and out-patient providers.

“CVS pharmacists, nurse practitioners and other health providers will be able to proactively treat the whole patient, when and where they need”, IBM stated in a press release.

“CVS Health and IBM are both committed to improving health and finding ways to engage individuals in their well-being through the use of information and technology”, said Troyen A. Brennan, MD, EVP and Chief Medical Officer for CVS Health.