IBM takes health care analytics to the cloud

Last week, I wrote about IBM's continued march to the cloud and the company's focus on using advanced analytical software to make better decisions faster.

This week both of these efforts are coming to light in the health care arena as Big Blue is set to announce that the National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP) will use advanced analytics software to cut the time required to match bone marrow donors with patients by up to 50 percent.

The NMDP estimates that as many as 10,000 patients may benefit from a transplant each year in the U.S. alone, while only four in 10 patients with life-threatening diseases receive the bone marrow they need to survive due to a range of factors, including wait time. The objective of the project is to dramatically speed bone marrow transplants which currently averages 96 days down to 45 days or less.

An IBM spokesman explained that the solution involves a broad range of software including business process management (BPM) that will allow administrators to manipulate searches and analysis without having to rely on developers to make changes. This means the matching process can be optimized and that non-IT staff can help to make the system smarter.

IBM is also announcing this week an effort to bring better medical care to Puerto Rico's 11,000 doctors via a private cloud service that will allow doctors to better leverage electronic medical records (EMR).

According to IBM, this is the first time an EMR solution is being rolled out across such a large scope and IBM along with partners Aetna and Medens are looking to make this rollout a model for other countries.

While health care is not my typical beat, these use-cases are the future of not just the medical field, but business as a whole. The better the data available to a system, the better the decisions that can be made in an automated fashion--and with human assistance.