Cleveland Clinic and IBM will collaborate on developing a model and standards that providers nationwide can replicate in moving to value-based care and population health techniques.

Under the terms of the deal, Cleveland Clinic will expand the use of IBMs secured cloud, social, mobile and Watson cognitive computing technologies across clinical and administrative operations.

The collaboration is designed to better capture the value of data and to enhance patient care across the Cleveland Clinic’s nine regional hospitals and 18 full-service family health centers.

“This initiative with IBM is mutually beneficial and will significantly advance our IT capabilities, which are increasingly important to provide the best care to patients as healthcare becomes more and more technology dependent,” Toby Cosgrove, MD, CEO and President of Cleveland Clinic, said in a statement. “With the explosion of data in healthcare, the technology solutions we will develop and implement together could transform our ability to deliver quality, evidence-based care and better respond to the needs of our patients, caregivers and partners.”

IBM and the Cleveland Clinic will work to improve and speed analysis of data from EHRs, information from administrative claims and social determinants of health, the companies said.

IBM and Cleveland Clinic executives said the collaboration will lead to personalized clinical care and broader population-focused management.

“For the past five years, Cleveland Clinic has been central to IBM’s effort to build Watson’s cognitive capabilities in healthcare," added Deborah DiSanzo, general manager of IBM Watson Health.

The new arrangement builds on previous deals between the organizations. In 2011 IBM and Cleveland Clinic trained the Watson supercomputing technology to “think” like a doctor. Then in 2013 IBM Research and Cleveland Clinic physicians developed a Watson EMR assistant to help clinicians cull relevant insights from electronic medical records. In 2014, Cleveland Clinic piloted Watson for Genomics to boost cancer research. And then in 2015 at HIMSS15, IBM acquired Explorys, a healthcare intelligence cloud company that has built one of the largest secured clinical data sets in the world, representing more than 50 million lives. 

Twitter: @Bernie_HITN
Email the writer: bernie.monegain@himssmedia.com

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This article is part of our ongoing coverage of HIMSS17. Visit Destination HIMSS17 for previews, reporting live from the show floor and after the conference.

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