Like it has for many of us, the COVID-19 pandemic has had a profound impact on me and those around me. On a personal level, my family and I are fortunate that we have the luxury of working from home for the most part. We have made the best of “social distancing” by keeping physical distance from others and doubling down on remaining socially connected. Our children, who are now in their 20s and staying with us, are once again enjoying family game nights and movie nights—which is certainly a silver lining for all of us. My boys are making the best of virtual college classes, and my daughter is working remotely, and maintaining connections to co-workers and clients early in her career. Of course, learning how to live together again, share bandwidth and avoid becoming socially isolated is essential. Many families across the globe have been physically, financially and mentally ravaged by this pandemic, and my hope is that we will all be okay in time.
Many of us will mark important milestones during this public health crisis. This year marks my 25th year since graduating medical school (we connected virtually), joining the Cleveland Clinic as an Internal Medicine specialist (part-time since focusing on health IT and informatics), and leaving Chicago to call the Cleveland area my home. As a physician, I can’t help but think about COVID-19 from a biological, clinical, and epidemiological perspective: a microscopic novel virus that has challenged our global and national infrastructures, preparedness, and despite advances, overwhelmed our clinical and scientific communities. I worry about my colleagues at the Cleveland Clinic, friends and classmates across the country, and family members who are on the front-line, essential to fighting this epidemic. Many of us in clinical roles who are not currently on the front lines may wonder: Am I where I need to be?
Five years ago this month (in April 2015), IBM acquired Explorys, a health big-data analytics company that I co-founded. Overnight, I became an IBMer and embarked on a journey where I focused on the importance of data and insights, analytics and AI, as well as people and policy. The talent, technology and assets that IBM continues to bring together—combined with the raw talent and knowledge of IBM in the healthcare and life sciences space—have provided a very rewarding sandbox for many of us focused on research and innovation.
I have been honored to be part of a team where we have built solutions and services that have helped providers impact hundreds and thousands of patients through our population health solutions and decision support. Our technology has helped enable radiologists and oncologists in their practices, along with helping life science companies strive to meet their business objectives. Our solutions have been used by employers and health plans to help manage health benefits. We’ve delivered technology to government agencies to help them manage social programs and engage citizens.
Our clients across the health ecosystem are essential to our health and welfare, and they play an important role in helping to address this pandemic. So when we asked ourselves how IBM can help address COVID-19, it was no surprise that we were able to respond and identify ways that our technology, solutions and services can offer help to those entities working to combat the pandemic. IBM is a founding member of a high-performance computing consortium providing resources for various projects. We were able to rapidly assemble our data and knowledge assets, analytics, and AI experience, and make some of our tools and services available at no cost.
Qualified researchers can potentially accelerate their discovery process with AI. IBM can help support their efforts by making COVID-19 open research data sets (CORD-19) more usable, providing molecular explorer tools to study potential drug targets, and offering genomics that are critical in understanding this novel virus.
While we await those discoveries, we have made available to front-line clinicians DynaMed and Micromedex with Watson, which is designed to help them spend more time caring for their patients and less time hunting for guidance on therapeutics and conditions related to COVID-19.
Finally, to help support a well-informed public, we have invested in tools that enable communities to deploy conversational AI to address citizens’ most pressing concerns during this time. To help provide transparency into the local impact of the pandemic, we have aggregated and made COVID-19 specific data available in The Weather Channel app.
Of course, we have been working with our health ecosystem clients on their transformation journeys for many years and it is quite gratifying when Desert Sage Health Centers used those principles to create a drive-through clinic in days to support their community. So, whether for those fighting at the bench, boardroom, or at the bedside, or for those who depend on them, what we do at IBM is indeed essential.
Stay well, and if you’d like to know more, please contact me or read our COVID-19 Action Guide.
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