By Elizabeth Dwoskin
An unlikely set of partners teamed up to capitalize on a
gathering flood of health-related personal information.
International Business Machines Corp. unveiled on Monday a
partnership with Apple Inc., Johnson & Johnson and Medtronic
Inc., as well as the acquisition of two medical-data software
companies. Known as Watson Health, the effort transfers IBM's
experience in data processing to the sensitive field of health
care, part of an evolving strategy to pool and analyze data from
other companies, such as Twitter Inc. and the Weather Channel. It
will attempt to leverage the tech company's analytics and
health-care software businesses into a new generation of apps for
patients and providers.
The project reflects a growing view among technology vendors and
medical providers that patient information that could yield
valuable insights--and business opportunities--is locked up in
proprietary silos. Such insights are increasingly valuable as the
payment approach in health care shifts toward rewarding favorable
health outcomes rather than services rendered. Watson Health would
marshal huge amounts of scrambled and aggregated patient data in
the service of providing individualized health care that might
improve outcomes and cut costs.
Johnson & Johnson and Medtronic will share revenue with IBM
from any apps sold. Apple will receive a cut of revenue through its
App Store.
Similar big-data efforts under way in health care include Optum
Labs, a collaboration between UnitedHealth Group and the Mayo
Clinic, in which researchers mine clinical and insurance data in
search of micro-patterns that give clues to early indicators of
disease and help to tailor treatments. Precision Medicine, an
initiative announced by President Barack Obama earlier this year,
will combine genetic data with information from fitness
trackers.
"The question is how does the medical system move away from
broad categories to customized guidance," said Robert Wachter,
associate chairman of the Department of Medicine at the University
of California and author of "The Digital Doctor: Hope, Hype, and
Harm at the Dawn of Medicine's Computer Age." Apps produced by
Watson Health, he said, could enable a physician to develop a
treatment course for a specific patient based on the genetic makeup
and fitness levels of large numbers of similar patients. Results
for consumers, though, are likely to be years away.
IBM's Watson data-mining technology has delivered impressive
results, famously winning at Jeopardy in 2011, but the path to
revenue has been slow. Turning data into actionable insights is a
tremendous challenge, and health-care data poses greater
difficulties, from accuracy to scientific value. Similar projects
have been very slow-going with sparse results. "The signal-to-noise
problems are humongous in health care," Dr. Wachter said. "People
who think this will be as quick as Amazon shopping recommendations
don't get the massive complexity."
All Watson Health partners will contribute data to the pool,
subject to competitive considerations. Data will come only from
patients who have consented to share their information and will be
scrubbed of personally identifying features.
Apple will supply fitness, nutrition, heart-rate and other such
information uploaded to some apps running on iPhones and iPads. In
return, the Cupertino, Calif., company will gain greater
penetration into the health-care sector through provider-focused
apps built by IBM and sold to hospitals and clinics.
Johnson & Johnson and Medtronic will contribute data from
devices for patients with diabetes and recovering from surgery.
Those companies will gain tighter relationships with customers
through patient-focused apps.
IBM will add to the data trove through Explorys and Phytel, two
acquisitions that hold clinical information about more than 50
million patients. It will store and analyze the data in a so-called
health cloud of computers, a network engineered to comply with
health privacy laws. The network will encrypt sensitive data to
thwart hackers.
IBM will work with Johnson & Johnson and Medtronic to
develop health apps for patients, to be sold through medical
providers. For example, a patient who recently underwent a joint
replacement and wore a J&J device could download a personal
health coaching app. The app could provide personalized guidance
between rehab visits and report to the provider on patient
progress, said Sandra Peterson, J&J's Group Worldwide
Chairman.
IBM will also build a suite of enterprise wellness apps, the
company said. IBM has a large foothold in large health-care
companies. The company sells products or does business with 89 of
the world's top 100 health-care organizations, it said.
"The health-care system is highly fragmented with very little
sharing of information, and outcomes are not acceptable and the
cost is completely unacceptable," said IBM Senior Vice President
John Kelly. "As we see health care becoming more information-based,
we see a role for IBM to step in."
Dr. Wachter said IBM was well positioned to provide such apps
because it appeared to be relatively neutral compared with medical
records or insurance companies that might pool similar data.
Write to Elizabeth Dwoskin at elizabeth.dwoskin@wsj.com
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