Health IT, Startups

Massive IBM deal gives Watson purpose and puts it in pole position to transform healthcare

For years Watson wandered in the wilderness of healthcare while IBM sought any partner it […]

For years Watson wandered in the wilderness of healthcare while IBM sought any partner it could to feed a beast that simply wanted more medical data.

Watson grew up all the way today, announcing a deal Monday at HIMSS 2015 that sharpens completely a growing focus of Watson in the medical industry. IBM has given the initiative a name: Watson Health.

The deals and partnerships are an exclamation point that gives more purpose not just to Watson but to Apple as well – through the deal Research Kit suddenly becomes more relevant. It also bundles in traditional health players like Johnson & Johnson and Medtronic and grabs two young stars in health data and cloud services – Explorys and Phytel (IBM acquired them both), respectively.

There are some question marks and assumptions – part of future could include counting on Millennials to donate their data, for example.

But this solidifies a specific role for IBM in some of the central medical issues of our time: personalized medicine. IBM will use Watson as a cloud-based provider of health data to deliver precision information to hospitals, insurance companies, researchers and patients.

As part of the announcement at HIMSS:

  • Apple will work with IBM to use cloud services and analytics for HealthKit and ResearchKit
  • Johnson & Johnson will partner with IBM to create coaching systems in areas including joint replacement and spinal surgery, and launch new health apps targeting chronic conditions
  • Medtronic will use Watson to provide personalized care management solutions for diabetes patients. Watson will analyze patient information from devices including insulin pumps and continuous glucose monitors

Plus, the acquisitions get IBM a company packed with data and another business that knows what to do with that data when it hits the cloud.

Cleveland Clinic-backed Explorys holds data on 50 million patients at 360 hospitals and more than 317,000 providers.  Dallas-based Phytel, meanwhile, uses cloud-based services that help healthcare providers and care teams work together.

“The lesson is scale – period,” said Steve McHale, Explorys’ CEO, said at IBM’s HIMSS announcement. “We had a vision of scale we opened the doors and stuck to our guns. We got folks to share data. We become very disciplined stewards and continued to build trust with the healthcare providers who are our partners. We stay aligned with those providers. IBM has that same level of trust with providers.

McHale said the opportunity for IBM with the combination of Explorys and the others in this deal “is exponential.”

When IBM started snooping around health several years ago, Watson was like a big roaming bear fresh out of hibernation gobbling any berries it could (except its meal was data).

As a testimony to how hungry and scattershot IBM was, I got a meeting with IBM’s venture arm when then-MedCity Media was raising capital. The interest was largely in understanding the potential of ingesting MedCity News’ original content.

Time and learning helped IBM evolve Watson, though. It focused on deals with Cleveland Clinic, Mayo Clinic and AirStrip. Even the Apple partnerships were clearly about health and by early this year there was clear momentum for a real direction.

Mike Rhodin, senior vice president for IBM Watson, said the company will continue to acquire companies that help the Watson Health mission. Rodin said IBM made these agreements because IBM better needed to mix its cognitive analytics with more traditional analytics methods, and to combine both the data Watson already had with the more siloed health data that sits within different health systems (enter Explorys).

“We can move beyond looking at certain diseases and look at health more holistically,” Rhodin said.

Finding unique approaches to capturing fresh data (and adding to IBM’s $17 billion analytics business) is far from over. For example, Rhodin envisions a partnership that would entice Millennials to take part in “data philanthropy” – donating their personal health information for their own health benefit but also a greater purpose – to be ingested by Watson and its new, formidable partners.

[Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images]

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