Epic, Watson at work on interoperability

Epic, Watson at work on interoperability

IBM Watson Health is collaborating with Epic and Mayo Clinic to apply cognitive computing capabilities of Watson to EHRs, and also with 14 cancer institutions to reduce from weeks to minutes the ability to translate DNA insights.

Epic has more than 350 customers – some of the largest and most-recognized healthcare systems in the world, IBM pointed out in announcing the collaboration – “and they exchanged more than 80 million medical records in the last 12 months, both within and outside the Epic community,” officials said. “Interoperability with Watson will enable these institutions to apply the cognitive capabilities of Watson to these records through secure, cloud-based Watson services, providing greater clinical insight to help personalize healthcare.”

As IBM executives see it, together, Watson and Epic software could be used to develop patient treatment protocols, personalize patient management for chronic conditions, and intelligently assist doctors and nurses by providing relevant evidence from the worldwide body of medical knowledge, putting new insight into the hands of clinical staff. Providers will be able to share patient-specific data with Watson in real time, within workflows, allowing Watson to bring forth critical evidence from medical literature and case studies that are most relevant to the patient’s care.

The medical community is one of the earliest adopters of Watson cognitive computing technology, where IBM has collaborated with leading hospitals and research institutes including Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, the Cleveland Clinic and the Mayo Clinic to advance Watson’s healthcare capabilities and to help transform how medicine is taught, researched and practiced.

In a separate announcement on Tuesday, IBM said Watson Health is collaborating with 14 leading cancer institutes to accelerate the ability of clinicians to identify and personalize treatment options for their patients.

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