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Steve Hamm in
“The secret of getting ahead is getting started.” Mark Twain
Today, IBM announced the 33 cities that will participate this year in its Smarter Cities Challenge grant program. This marks the second year in a three-year, $50 million, 100-city initiative. IBM sends five- or six-person teams of experts in a range of disciplines to help cities formulate strategies for improving the quality of life for their citizens.
By now, IBM has amassed a wealth of knowledge about how to help cities get started on transformational projects. Last year, the company engaged with 25 cities around the world, including St. Louis in the United States, Glasgow in the United Kingdom, Chiang Mai in Thailand and Johannesburg in South Africa. The previous year, they ran test programs in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; Katowice, Poland; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Chengdu, China; and elsewhere. The themes of the projects ranged from education, transportation and to public safety to energy and sustainable economic development. Here’s a post on the Citizen IBM blog from Stephen Mandel, the mayor of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, about the engagement there.
After each engagement, IBM’s Corporate Citizenship team identifies lessons learned. The exercise is partly aimed at improving the program itself, but the team also gleans insights that could help any leader in any city launch an initiative aimed at fundamentally transforming an aspect of how the city works. Here are some of the most critical lessons for leaders:
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Steve Hamm in
This is the latest in an occasional series of posts about A New Era of Computing. IBM envisions a monumental shift over the coming years: computing will be ubiquitous and machines will learn from their interactions with data and humans–essentially programming themselves. This quantum leap will be enabled by advances in artificial intelligence, data analytics, computing systems and nanotechnology. It will result in a smarter, better planet.
What if any doctor in the world had access to the expertise of the best doctors in the world when choosing among treatment options for an individual patient? That’s the vision that’s driving a small group of scientists at IBM Research – Haifa.
Their work is getting it’s first real-world tryout with Fondazione IRCCS Istituto Nazionale dei Tumori, a public health institute in Milan, Italy, which specializes in the study and treatment of cancer. The IBM Research project, called Cli-G, for clinical genomics research, is a biomedical analytics system that uses machine learning, among other technologies, to provide physicians with treatment advice tailored for an individual. The Cli-G system combines a wide variety of data, including statistical records of the outcomes of particular treatments, clinical and genetic information about the particular patient and the expertise of top physicians. “We’re incorporating the knowledge of experts–all the things the physician brings in from past experience,” says Boaz Carmeli, the IBM researcher who leads the project.
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by Jim Flanigan, Director of Marketing, Society of Critical Care Medicine
Collaboration improves critical care around the world.
Say you live in or are traveling in Africa, Asia, or South America and are rushed to a hospital with a serious illness or after a serious injury. Even if you end up in the intensive care unit, there is no guarantee that the physician, nurse, or clinician who will treat you has been trained in how to care for critically ill or injured patients. Continue Reading »
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Steve Hamm in
America’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act has plenty of enemies, but the biggest problem with the law isn’t that parts of it, including the individual mandate, have become politically radioactive. The biggest problem is that while the law goes a long way to expand the population of people with health insurance, it doesn’t comprehensively address an even bigger problem–the unsustainable cost of the country’s healthcare system. Here’s a killer factoid for you: it is estimated that by 2018, partly due to the addition of 32 million people to the ranks of the insured, the annual bill for healthcare in the country will swell from $2.5 trillion to $4.3 trillion–or about 20% of GDP.
These facts came to the fore during a panel discussion between five of the top healthcare experts in the country that was conducted by Bloomberg BusinessWeek at its HQ in New York on Jan. 26. Video clips were posted on the publication’s Web site today. (The event was sponsored by IBM, which was why I was invited.)
The title of Bloomberg’s discussion series is “Fix This,” and while it’s clear that fixing the healthcare system will take more than an enlightened group discussion on a Thursday night in New York City, the quality of the expert’s comments pushed me to a firm conviction: The way to fix healthcare is to get the smartest people together from all segments of the system–including government–and call on them to find common ground because the nation’s financial viability depends on it.
Here’s a hopeful message about the potential of healthcare reform from Dan Pelino, General Manager, IBM Healthcare and Life Sciences, who introduces Bloomberg’s video package.
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by Calvin Chai, Director, Enterprise Marketing, Juniper Networks
Just last month, I was at my doctor’s office for a routine checkup. Thankfully there were no needles involved with my visit, and in fact, I was in and out in less than 20 minutes. What struck me about my experience was how efficient and smooth everything was. When the doctor walked into the exam room, he had instant access to my medical history on the screen. When he took my blood pressure, the cuff was linked to the database to automatically record the information. And finally, when it came to a prescription, a simple series of clicks and I was told my medication would be waiting for me at my local pharmacy. Continue Reading »
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Chris Luongo in
Since its stunning victory on Jeopardy! a year ago, IBM’s Watson computing system has been put to work in healthcare and financial services. But the real-world possibilities are endless.
Click on the image for a larger view:
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By Manoj Saxena
General manager, IBM Watson Solutions
When IBM’s Watson computer defeated two all-time champions of the Jeopardy! TV quiz show one year ago (Feb. 14-16), it was the culmination of an intensive four-year research effort by a team of IBM scientists. At the same time, it was the beginning of another quest—a campaign to turn the breakthrough technology into commercial offerings that have the potential to transform whole industries. (Suggestions? Tweet to #WhatShouldWatsonDoNext?)
I feel incredibly fortunate that I got the assignment of heading up the new business, called IBM Watson Solutions. That’s because I’m a serial entrepreneur at heart. Over the past 15 years, I started two software companies and later sold them—the second one to IBM. I stuck with Big Blue after the sale but dreamed of becoming an entrepreneur again some day. Now, my wish has come true—just not in the way I expected.
As general manager of IBM Watson Solutions, I’m running what is essentially a startup within IBM and, at the same time, my little company-within-a-company gets the benefit of IBM’s resources and patient investment philosophy.
IBM’s Dan Pelino describes how WellPoint is using Watson to help transform healthcare.
Editor’s note: Nearly two-thirds of all deaths globally occur due to non-communicable diseases. Better prevention and treatment could save tens of millions of lives and reduce healthcare costs dramatically. IBM and Novartis recently sponsored the NCD Challenge, a global university competition aimed at producing innovative solutions addressing NCDs. The winners are Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley; and ESADE Business School, Ramon Llull University in Barcelona, Spain. This guest post was written by the leader of the University of California, Berkeley team.
By Emily S. Ewell, Haas School of Business, University of California-Berkeley
Chronic illness such as asthma, diabetes and cancer need tangible, targeted solutions that maximize impact with the right intervention. Our university’s team in the NCD Challenge chose to narrow in on Type 2 diabetes – a measurable condition and intersection point for countless chronic risk factors. The good news is Type 2 diabetes is nearly 100% preventable by addressing risk factors such as unhealthy diet and physical inactivity. Continue Reading »
Editor’s note: Nearly two-thirds of all deaths globally occur due to non-communicable diseases. Better prevention and treatment could save tens of millions of lives and reduce healthcare costs dramatically. IBM and Novartis recently sponsored the NCD Challenge, a global university competition aimed at producing innovative solutions addressing NCDs. The winners are Haas School of Business, University of California, Berkeley; and ESADE Business School, Ramon Llull University in Barcelona, Spain. This guest post was written by the leader of the ESADE team.
Join the conversion at People for a Smarter Planet on Facebook and on Twitter at #NCD.
By Ching-Chia Hsu
ESADE Business School-Universidad Ramón Llull
Over the past several decades, because of advances in science, business and government services, life has become easier for many people around the globe. However, one of the side effects of increased wealth and leisure is that a lot of people suffer from non- communicable diseases, which are often the result of poor eating habits and inadequate exercise.
Among NCDs, diabetes is one of the major and most challenging chronic diseases. There are 346 million diabetics worldwide, and this number is expected to double by 2030. In China alone, the population of diabetics tops 90 million, and they account for 14 percent of national healthcare expenditures.
The severity of the diabetes epidemic was what inspired my university’s team in the NCD Challenge to create a innovative way of lessening its impact. The other team members were: Meng-Chi Chen, Alexander Anthonysamy, Kohei Sato and Feras Nagadi,
by Marty Minniti, RN
Marty Minniti, RN, is product development chief, Care PartnersPlus-Wellby. Wellby is a new interactive healthcare management solution for use in physician offices, hospitals, work sites and retail pharmacies to collect and exchange feedback from patients at the point of care. Wellby uses IBM kiosks, the same familiar technology found in airports, hotels and self-service kiosks in retail environments.
Recently on a trip from Boston to Philadelphia, I read an article in The New Yorker on brain storming and group thinking. What caught my interest was the description of the work of two social scientists who studied more than 474 Broadway productions looking for what made both an ideal team and a financially successful Broadway hit. Continue Reading »
