IBM expands the Center of analytical solutions for health care

As a part of this expansion, the Center of analytical solutions implements at themselves a number of the technologies used in the experimental IBM Watson computing system which earlier this year won a victory over two best living participants of the intellectual television quiz show Jeopardy! The analyst for health care, using difficult analytical techniques for understanding of sense and a context of medical information, it is even more often applied to the help to the organizations in extraction of new important knowledge from promptly growing volumes of medical data. According to results of the recent research conducted by Enterprise Strategy Group company, growth rates of these volumes are, on average, 35% a year.

Binding among themselves doctors, their smartphones and the systems of electronic medical records for the purpose of obtaining new important information

Today 27% of medical specialists and attending physicians use tablet computers or similar devices. As doctors use intelligent devices five times bigger, than the population in general, they will feel the increasing need for fast connection to the systems of electronic medical records during phone conversations, rounds in hospitals or on calls for instant access to clinical records of patients or medical records at the office.

More and more wide use of mobile devices, however, creates new problems. Updating of medical data, conducting records and an information access on compact devices with the chiclet keyboard can be a difficult task. Doctors can select for interactive interaction with EMR systems the text, voice or combined input.

Using the specialized medical system of speech recognition from company Nuance Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ: NUAN) and a management system for medical terminology from company Health Language, Inc., IBM works on improvement of mobile opportunities of EMR solutions by means of a sensing technology of the speech and technology which allows to understand the texts saturated with medical terms – just as the Watson system analyzed hundreds of millions pages of the text from books, encyclopedias and the periodical press on the television quiz show Jeopardy!. These opportunities will allow the persons performing medical care to obtain more important information from clinical records, results of laboratory analyses, reports on medical researches and other documentation which can be analyzed and compared in electronic form now.

Applying analytics to determination of the hidden sense which is contained in clinical records, reports on medical researches, medical images and comparative data, computers can take required data of the patient and represent them to doctors that, as a result, leads to improvement of care of patients.

Remote data analysis of the patient

IBM also expands works of the Center in the field of remote monitoring of patients, helping medical institutions to integrate and connect to network of the device from different producers to provide a possibility of remote observation of a status of patients.

Remote monitoring, in particular, can be used after the statement of the patient from hospital for control of possible deterioration in a status or postoperative complications. Obtaining important data on temperature, blood pressure and pulse rate, automatically controlling drug intake using the application on the smartphone Bluetooth-enabled, health workers can control the patient's status in real time. It allows patients to recover the health in a usual and comfortable situation, and the persons performing medical care can quickly make the informed decisions and adequately work, when necessary.

These and other medical analytical technologies are developed with the purpose to help the organizations to deal with huge amounts of data which they generate every day. As expected, as a result of rapid distribution of the systems of electronic medical records and other medical IT applications, the amounts of data related to suppliers of medical services in North America will grow by 2015 to the level close to 14000 petabyte.

Owing to the strong growth of volumes of medical data and need of extraction from them important information, the medical analytics purchases the increasing value as the leading hospitals apply analytical means to conversion of many aspects of the activity, such as adoption of clinical solutions and coordination of patient care.

The center of analytical solutions for health care since the opening in 2009 works more than with 150 hospitals, programs of health insurance and other medical organizations. The center provides to the clients access to experts in the field of medical analytics, to technical architects and specialists and also connects with hundreds of other experts of IBM in solutions for health care around the world, including the staff of consulting service IBM Business Analytics and Optimization and research division of IBM Research.

Health Analytics Solution Center – the center first in own way designed to meet the needs of the organizations of health care in the analyst who uses advantages of the increased computing power to the collecting and data analysis arriving from sensors, monitoring systems of patients, the medical equipment and portable mobile devices and also data arrays which are daily generated by medical institutions.

This year century of IBM is noted, and the health care continues to remain one of the most important industry directions of business of the company. IBM selects over 6 billion dollars a year for research and development which considerable part covers solutions for health sector. IBM is one of the few technology companies with large staff of the doctors and other medical specialists providing satisfaction of the most pressing needs of health care.