At HIMSS15, IBM announced new plans for Watson, making an aggressive move into the health IT world.
Here are seven things to know about IBM's plans for Watson.
1. IBM introduced a new healthcare unit, IBM Watson Health, which will use cognitive computing to advance innovation using the volume of personal data that is created everyday. The health unit will be headquartered in the Boston area.
2. The company is also establishing the Watson Health Cloud, a secure and open platform for physicians, researchers, insurers and other healthcare companies to access individualized insights and a holistic image of what can affect people's health.
3. To help support IBM Watson's foray into health IT, the company is collaborating with Apple, Johnson & Johnson and Medtronic to create new offerings that leverage information collected from health, medical and fitness devices.
4. With Apple, IBM will provide the new Watson Health Cloud as a secure platform and analytics offering for Apple's HealthKit and ResearchKit. IBM will de-identify and store health data in the cloud to foster an "open ecosystem environment" that also offers researchers and developers to utilize IBM's data mining and predictive analytics capabilities.
5. Johnson & Johnson and IBM will collaborate to create intelligent coaching systems regarding preoperative and postoperative patient care for procedures including joint replacement and spinal surgery. The new solutions will utilize Waton's cognitive capabilities and access Watson Health Cloud's data. Additionally, J&J plans to launch health apps focused on chronic conditions.
6. Leveraging insights from Watson Health Cloud, Medtronic and IBM plan to develop personalized care management solutions for people with diabetes. The solutions will gather and analyze patient information from Medtronic devices, such as glucose monitors and insulin pumps, and provide personalized management strategies to patients and their providers.
7. IBM also announced the acquisition of two health companies: population health management software provider Phytel and cloud-based integration solution provider Explorys. Through the acquisition, IBM seeks to bolster its advanced analytics and cognitive computing capabilities.
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