The collaboration will feature a challenge to developers to create cognitive apps for healthcare.
The American Diabetes Association has announced they are teaming with IBM Watson as part of a new initiative to build a diabetes advisor for patients and caregivers. The June 13 announcement also included a challenge to developers to create cognitive apps that could transform how diabetes is managed and prevented. The news was announced at the Association’s 76th Scientific Sessions.
Under the partnership, IBM Watson will ingest and analyze the association’s massive collection of clinical and scientific data, all 66 years worth, along with aggregated data about self-management of diabetes and diabetes education. Watson will be trained to understand diabetes data to identify risk factors and create evidence-based recommendations.
Health-care providers could use the database to identify and address potential risk factors in patients by comparing individual to population-level trends. It’s also hoped this tool will accelerate significant research breakthroughs.
Patients and caregivers will also be given tools that provide tailored insights to help with treatment and prevention. Individual factors such as demographics, behavior, disease stage and treatment would be considered when producing the insights. A possible mobile app with Watson Care Manager is also a possibility, and would learn from the patient each time it is used.
In the future the collaboration may draw insights and data from Watson Health Cloud and make use of Watson’s deep Q&A, natural language processing, predictive analytics and similarity analytics capabilities, the company stated.
Developers are encouraged to submit proposals for cognitive apps that leverage IBM Watson and the ADA’s data repository. Developers can visit watsonhealth.ibm.com/challengediabetes to learn more.
