IBM Watson Health Announces Dual Partnerships to Advance Value-Based Care and Patient Engagement

At 0:21 a.m. on February 24, as most people were about to drift off to sleep, IBM China’s official WeChat account released two partnership announcements.The first is collaborating with CNYCC to improve the health of community residents, and the other is reaching an agreement with Atrius Health to develop a cloud-based service to enhance the patient-physician experience.Both organizations are non-profit entities. What is Watson Health’s agenda?

Let’s look at the first item. CNYCC, or Central New York Care Collaborative, is a nonprofit organization that connects more than 2,000 healthcare and community service providers across six counties in Central New York.

As a lead entity implementing New York State’s Delivery System Reform Incentive Payment (DSRIP) program, CNYCC collaborates with more than 170 organizations to coordinate care and enhance healthcare access for over 200,000 Medicaid beneficiaries and uninsured patients in the region. Another key mission of CNYCC is to assist medical safety-net providers in transitioning to value-based care payment models.

This collaboration between Watson Health and CNYCC aims to create a cognitive population health platform designed to connect more than 2,000 healthcare and community service providers across six counties in Central New York. The platform was established with the mission of helping to improve the health outcomes of residents in the region.

During project implementation, unnecessary emergency department visits and readmissions will be reduced by 25%, thereby lowering costs for the Medicaid program. This population health platform will operate on the Watson Health Cloud.

According to McKinsey data,A wealth of insights in healthcare industry data remain to be unlocked, with an estimated annual value of approximately $300 billion.. Patient data are often siloed, hindering physicians’ ability to identify health issues and potential risk factors that affect the quality of patient care. For example, an endocrinologist may be unaware that her diabetic patient also suffers from depression, which poses significant medical risks due to non-adherence.

For CNYCC'sPopulation Health Management (PHM) System, IBM Watson Health will integrate multiple care scenarios—initial diagnosis and treatment, post-acute care, behavioral health, and community and acute care—as well as more than 75 electronic health record systems, health information exchange platforms, and other data sources.

CNYCC’s Population Health Management (PHM) system aggregates diverse data to provide a holistic view of patient conditions, encompassing clinical cases, social determinants of health, and behavioral health. Clinicians can access patient information through this platform and choose to contact patients to prompt timely medical consultations and care management; for example, by sending a private reminder for the patient to pick up their prescription.

“Central New York is leading a nationwide healthcare evolution toward efficient, scalable, patient-centered population health management and value-based care,” said Anil Jain, M.D., FACP, Vice President of Value-Based Care at IBM Watson Health and Chief Health Information Officer.

“The key lies in identifying high-risk individuals and leveraging Watson-powered tools and services to help healthcare providers engage with patients, thereby improving their health outcomes. As the healthcare industry shifts from a ‘fee-for-service’ model to a value-based system, care providers need integrated solutions to gain a comprehensive view of every patient within their population.”

Watson Care Manager combines best practices in care management with automated workflows, empowering care managers to create personalized care plans that account for various health-related factors and engage individuals in collaborative efforts to improve health outcomes. The system integrates Watson’s cognitive computing capabilities with IBM’s existing expertise in population health management and social program management.

In addition to revealing information about specific patients, it can perform similarity analysis by leveraging broader health data from the Watson Health Cloud, helping clinicians identify potential risk factors in similar patients. Importantly, the Watson Health population health platform provides seamless patient engagement capabilities, creating a comprehensive healthcare workflow that spans from patient insights and provider-patient interactions to treatment delivery.

Let’s examine the second point. First, let’s understand what Atrius Health is. It is a leading non-profit healthcare organization that provides an effective connected care system for more than 675,000 adult and pediatric patients in central and eastern Massachusetts.

AtriusHealth comprises 30 medical practices, more than 50 specialties, and 875 physicians who collaborate with home health and hospice care providers affiliated with its VNA Care division, while also working closely with hospital partners, community specialists, and skilled nursing facilities. AtriusHealth delivers high-quality, patient-centered, coordinated care to every patient it serves.

Agreement with Atrius Health to develop a cloud-based service to improve the patient-physician experience.By providing a holistic view of the multiple factors influencing personal health, including social determinants, Watson Cognitive Insights supports shared decision-making between physicians and patients.

According to an article published in Health Affairs, shared decision-making (where physicians and their patients make medical decisions together based on the best available clinical evidence) is closely associated with numerous benefits for patients, clinicians, and the healthcare system.

For example, it can enhance patient understanding, reduce anxiety during treatment, improve health outcomes, minimize unwarranted care and cost variations, and provide care that better aligns with patients’ interests. Despite these numerous benefits, many physicians still report difficulties in integrating shared decision-making techniques into their direct interactions with patients.

To address these challenges, new solutions can be designed,Integrating Electronic Health Record Systems into Physician Workflows. This solution summarizes key cognitive insights into patients' health status, identifies de-identified cohorts of similar patients, and describes their health outcomes under different treatment options.。

Mr. Paul Tang, M.D., Vice President and Chief Health Transformation Officer at IBM Watson Health, stated, “Watson’s natural language processing capabilities can read and understand clinical notes within electronic health records. When combined with analytics and other advanced technologies, it can also extract key insights into individual health and facilitate interventions.”。“With access to comprehensive personal information and insights into treatment outcomes of similar patients, physicians can develop personalized patient care plans with greater confidence.”

Steve Strongwater, M.D., President and CEO of Atrius Health, stated, “Atrius Health is committed to enhancing positive emotions among clinicians and medical staff in the delivery of medical care. Leveraging the strategic partnership with IBM Watson Health, Atrius Health...”, helping clinicians more effectively leverage the vast amounts of digital information generated in daily patient care.

“Watson Cognitive Insights’ unique capabilities will help our primary care physicians enhance effectiveness and efficiency. Moreover, we anticipate that this collaboration will enable us to more accurately identify and bridge gaps in care, thereby improving the quality and safety of non-fixed clinical care.”

By partnering with IBM Watson Health to develop this new solution, Atrius Health aims to ensure that powerful analytics are applied at the point of care to support real-world physician-patient conversations.

This marks another new application of the Watson AI system as a tool in healthcare, and we look forward to further improvements brought by artificial intelligence.

Source: IBM China’s official WeChat account