Amy Neff Roth

Watson, the Jeopardy-winning celebrity supercomputer, is bringing his considerable computing capability to bear in Central New York.

Watson and the folks at IBM Watson Health will be working with regional health care providers to help keep area residents healthier.

The providers are all part of the Central New York Care Collaborative, which includes more than 2,000 providers in six counties, including Oneida and Madison.

What were doing is working with partners and all different types of health care providers: hospitals, physicians, primary care physicians in particular, long-term-care facilities, behavioral health and substance abuse-type facilities, community benefit organizations, every type of health care organization, said Executive Director Virginia Opipare. We are working to build and connect a seamless system for health care delivery that moves this region and helps to prepare this region for a value-based pay environment.

That pay system is one in which providers are paid for health outcomes and the quality of care provided, not a set fee for each service delivered. Its forcing providers to work together to create a more seamless system of care to keep patients healthier.

Thats where Watson comes in. The collaborative has partnered with IBM Watson Health to work on population health management, a huge buzz concept in health care in which providers work to keep patients from needing their services. Thats good for patients and good for health care costs.

To do that, IBM and Watson will gather data from providers 44 different kinds of electronic health records and state Medicaid claims data, normalize and standardize the data, and analyze it. That way providers can see all the care their patients have received and can figure out how to best help each patient, and over time, the collaborative can learn about how to keep patients healthy.

This is about identifying high risk individuals and using Watson-based tools and services to help providers engage with patients to improve health, said Dr. Anil Jain, vice president and chief health informatics office, value-based care at IBM Watson Health, in a release. As the health care industry shifts away from fee-for-service to a value-based system, care providers need integrated solutions that help them gain a holistic view of each individual within a population of patients.

The first wave of implementation should come within the next six months, Opipare said.

The CNY Care Collaborative is one of 25 regional performing-provider organizations in that state organized under the states Delivery System Reform Incentive Payment program to reshape health care in the state with a goal of cutting unnecessary hospital readmissions by 25 percent in five years. Organizations apply for state funding for projects chosen from a list of possibilities. The program is funded by $6.42 billion set aside from a federal waiver that allowed the state keep $8 billion of federal money saved the states redesign of Medicaid.

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Watson supercomputer working to keep you healthier - Utica Observer Dispatch