The most important relationships in our lives are based on trust, and nowhere is this more important than in the field of healthcare. As an industry, we ask patients to place their trust in the individuals and organizations providing them care, often when they are at their most vulnerable. How can healthcare IT systems and providers ensure doctors, hospitals, pharmacists, nurses, and technicians have the right data at the right time to pick the best treatment and provide better patient experiences and outcomes? The future for better patient-provider relationships and outcomes lies in cognitive computing. 

During her keynote at HIMSS this week, Ginni Rometty spoke of the five lessons IBM has learned via their efforts developing Watson Health, IBM's cognitive healthcare platform.

• It's not about one solution—it's about many cognitive algorithms working together to deliver the best insights.
• Transparency into who trained Watson and what data has been fed into it is essential to the level of confidence researchers and doctors have in its recommendations and findings.
• Any cognitive health solution must be domain-specific. Meaning, it must be trained in healthcare by healthcare professionals.
• It must be cloud-based and hybrid to make it ubiquitous and to promote openness and collaboration.
• Lastly, it needs to operate on an open platform, to be part of a larger ecosystem invested in the success of augmented intelligence.

Cognitive solutions like Watson Health are redefining the healthcare industry due in large part to the capacity to process massive amounts of unstructured data. Data has become one of our greatest raw resources, but current data processors can't handle unstructured data in the form of images or patient interviews. 80% of the world's data is dark and untouched and the problem isn't getting smaller. Health data doubles every 90 days, and each individual will create 1100 TB of data over their lifetime. It is becoming more important than ever to drive insight and monetize data as a core imperative.

There are already organizations taking advantage of cognitive solutions to discover new medicines and treatments which highlight overlooked connections and patterns across different diseases. And while many participants are big players in the industry, cognitive's potential isn't limited to them. Companies of all sizes can invest in transforming their systems to discover better treatment options and deliver more personalized care. 

Patients and their families deserve better experiences and outcomes. By investing in cognitive, companies can begin a partnership to augment human intelligence and expertise to provide the best treatment possible for more patients than ever before. 

If you missed the conference and want to learn more about how healthcare providers are using cognitive technology, download our session content or book a meeting with our HLS experts.