The FINANCIAL — IBM announced that UPMC will use IBM Business Analytics services and software to expand the healthcare system’s analytics capabilities to improve patient care by making it more effective and more personalized.
UPMC turned to IBM to help develop an overall strategy and predictive analytics vision for the integrated healthcare delivery system. As IBM reported, the strategy is based on an enterprise analytics platform that is flexible, easy to use and that provides intensive prescriptive and predictive analytics capabilities.
By centralizing information across UPMC’s 20-plus hospitals, 400 doctors’ offices and outpatient sites and health insurance services division, big data from more than 200 sources of information, such as medical records and imaging systems, labs, pharmacies, financial and administrative systems, can be mined using predictive and content analytics software to support UPMC’s personalized medicine strategy. IBM will also work with UPMC to incorporate massive amounts of unstructured textual data, such as information in physician notes and nursing documentation, for new insight to improve care.
Big data can be combined with analytics to help reduce hospital readmissions by identifying high risk individuals, such as congestive heart failure or diabetes patients, to ensure they receive the care they need after leaving the hospital. For chronically ill patients, UPMC will be able to track their progress and health outcomes over a lifetime so UPMC can continuously improve treatment plans and develop new models of care.
UPMC will also integrate the latest health data from other organizations, such as the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and national disease registries, for the latest outcome benchmarks and metrics, or Press Ganey for insight on patient satisfaction and other performance metrics.
“Every patient is different; every patient has a unique story. This comprehensive analytics approach will enable us to treat each patient in a personalized way to produce the best possible results,” said Dr. Steven S. Shapiro, chief medical and scientific officer at UPMC, recently ranked No. 10 in U.S. News and World Report’s Honor Roll of America’s Best Hospitals.
“Working with IBM, UPMC is once again taking the lead in innovating,” said Dan Pelino, general manager, IBM Healthcare and Life Sciences. “Using smart technology with a focus on analytics will help improve the quality of care and research. Our shared vision for using analytics in new ways will help further differentiate UPMC among the nation’s leading healthcare systems.”
IBM Global Business Services will help UPMC initiate the analytics infrastructure project using IBM Healthcare Data Models and IBM Business Analytics and Optimization software, including Netezza, Cognos TM1 and SPSS analytics tools to create predictive models with IBM Cognos business intelligence tools for reporting. IBM Initiate software provides the foundation for all patient identification at UPMC, resolving patient identity issues and improving search and patient identification.
Last month, UPMC announced an extension of its agreement with IBM to improve data center performance and reliability while reducing costs. The renewal was valued at $120 million over the next four years. Under the original agreement signed in 2005, UPMC achieved cost savings of more than $191 million over six years.
IBM has established the world’s deepest portfolio of analytics solutions, business and industry expertise. This includes almost 9,000 dedicated business analytics and optimization consultants and 400 researchers. IBM secures hundreds of patents a year in analytics, and continues to expand its ecosystem, which consists of more than 27,000 IBM business partners. IBM has also created eight global analytics solution centers in Berlin, Beijing, Dallas, London, New York, Tokyo, Washington and Zurich.
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