ORLANDO, Fla., Feb.
20, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Atrius Health and IBM
(NYSE: IBM) Watson Health today entered into an agreement to
develop a cloud based service designed to improve the
physician-patient experience. By providing a holistic view of the
multiple influences on an individual's health, including social
determinants, Watson Cognitive Insights could be designed to
support shared decision making between physicians and patients.
Atrius Health is an innovative nonprofit healthcare organization
with 875 physicians caring for 675,000 patients in eastern
Massachusetts.
According to a paper published by Health Affairs1,
shared decision making, whereby physicians and their patients make
healthcare decisions together using the best clinical evidence
available, has been linked to numerous benefits for patients,
clinicians, and the health care system. This includes increased
patient knowledge, less anxiety over the care process, improved
health outcomes, reductions in unwarranted variation in care and
costs, and greater alignment of care with patients' values. Despite
these benefits, many physicians report challenges incorporating
shared decision making technology into their direct patient
interactions.
The new solution could be designed to address these challenges
by integrating within the physician's workflow in the electronic
health record system. It could summarize key cognitive insights
about a patient's health status, assemble a de-identified cohort of
people similar to the individual, and describe the outcomes of
those people under various treatment options.
"Atrius Health is committed to increasing the joy in the
practice of medicine for our clinicians and staff," said
Steve Strongwater, MD, President and
CEO of Atrius Health. "Working with IBM Watson Health offers a
unique opportunity to help our Atrius Health clinicians make
greater use of the mountains of digitalized information generated
daily through our care of patients. The unique capabilities of
Watson Cognitive Insights will help our primary care clinicians
increase both effectiveness and efficiency. Furthermore, we
anticipate this partnership will increase our ability to reliably
identify and close care gaps to improve the quality and safety of
ambulatory clinical care."
By teaming with IBM Watson Health on the development of this new
solution, Atrius Health aims to ensure that powerful analytics are
applied at the point-of-care to support real world
physician/patient dialogue.
"Watson's natural language processing can read and understand
clinical notes in the electronic health record. When combined with
analytics and other advanced technologies, it is then possible to
extract critical insights about an individual's health and
responses to interventions," said Paul
Tang, MD, MS, Vice President and Chief Health Transformation
Officer for IBM Watson Health. "Armed with comprehensive
information about the individual, and insights about the outcomes
of similar people, physicians will be in a better position to
personalize the care plan for each person."
About Atrius Health
Atrius Health, an innovative
nonprofit healthcare leader, delivers an effective system of
connected care for more than 675,000 adult and pediatric patients
in eastern and central Massachusetts. Atrius Health's 30 medical
practices, with more than 50 specialties and 875 physicians, work
together with the home health and hospice services of its VNA Care
subsidiary and in close collaboration with hospital partners,
community specialists and skilled nursing facilities. Atrius
Health provides high-quality, patient-centered, coordinated care to
every patient it serves. Establishing a solid foundation of
knowledge, understanding and trust with each of its patients,
Atrius Health enriches their health and enhances their lives. Learn
more about Atrius Health at www.atriushealth.org.
About IBM Watson Health
Watson is the first
commercially available cognitive computing capability representing
a new era in computing. The system, delivered through the cloud,
analyzes high volumes of data, understands complex questions posed
in natural language, and proposes evidence-based answers. Watson
continuously learns, gaining in value and knowledge over time, from
previous interactions. In April 2015,
the company launched IBM Watson Health and the Watson Health Core
cloud platform (now Watson Platform for Health). The new unit will
help improve the ability of doctors, researchers and insurers to
innovate by surfacing insights from the massive amount of personal
health data being created and shared daily. The Watson Platform for
Health can mask patient identities and allow for information to be
shared and combined with a dynamic and constantly growing
aggregated view of clinical, research and social health data. For
more information on IBM Watson, visit: ibm.com/watson. For more
information on IBM Watson Health, visit: ibm.com/watsonhealth.
Media Contacts
Atrius Health
Jackson Murphy
jmurphy@solomonmccown.com
(617) 933-5011
IBM Watson Health
Jessica Emond
+1 (202) 257-1808
Jessica.Emond@ibm.com
1 France Légaré and Holly O. Witteman Shared
Decision Making: Examining Key Elements And Barriers To Adoption
Into Routine Clinical Practice
Health Affairs 32, no.2 (2013):276-284
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SOURCE IBM