471
CardioPulse
be a trusted advisor, go through all that information, provide advice at
the point of care to the cardiologist so he or she makes the decision in
terms of what’s best for that patient in a shared decision-making process,’ says Dr Rhee. ‘That’s how we think about applying Watson.’
IBM is currently collaborating with 20 institutions, including
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York and the Mayo
Clinic to work with Watson, particularly in the fields of oncology and
genomics. In cancer care alone, Watson has absorbed 300 medical
journals and 200 text books. The system’s technology for cancer
treatment is also being applied in India, Thailand, and South Korea.
But IBM has also forged agreements with the American Heart
Association and wants to work more closely with the ESC on applications for cardiovascular medicine. ‘For a cardiologist who has
10–15 min with a patient they often find they have a large medical record with multiple chronic conditions and issues’, Dr Rhee says.
‘IBM Watson Health is looking at ways in which we can work with
cardiologists, with providers and other stakeholders in the healthcare
system whether they are payers, or policy makers, or manufacturers.
This is not about replacing physicians it is about augmenting their intelligence at the point of care so they can focus on their relationships.
We want to empower that person.’
Dr Rhee says the volume and the variety of data at a doctor’s
fingertips is critical but so too is the veracity of health care data.
‘Some of it is junk data. You need a system that can go through it all
and assess the value of the data. Ultimately it should lead to better
health outcomes at an affordable cost.’
Josephine McKenna BA
Freelance journalist
+39 331 528 9698
[email protected]
Conflict of interest: none declared.
doi:10.1093/eurheartj/ehx023
People’s corner: Award
Dr Calum MacRae and research team receive
$75M investment award
The American Heart Association, Verily Life Sciences and AstraZeneca announced
the winner of innovative $75M One Brave Idea Research Award
Calum MacRae MD PhD, chief of
Cardiovascular Medicine at Boston’s
Brigham and Women’s Hospital,
received the One Brave IdeaTM research award to support his visionary
approach to understanding and addressing coronary heart disease (CHD).
The American Heart Association
(AHA), Verily Life Sciences LLC (formerly Google Life Sciences), an
Alphabet company and AstraZeneca,
launched One Brave Idea in January 2016 as the largest one-time
award to a single team to find a cure to end CHD and its consequences. In October 2016, the American Heart Association
announced the winner of the $75M award to end cardiovascular disease. This figure represents the largest one-time investment focused
to end coronary heart disease.
Nancy Brown chief executive officer of the AHA commented ‘Dr.
MacRae and his newly-formed, world-renowned, multidisciplinary
team were selected from among hundreds of applicants from around
the world to receive this landmark award that will provide support
over a 5-year period for a research project focused on uncovering
the causes of heart disease, including previously unrecognized signals
marking the transition from wellness to the earliest, yet still largely invisible stages of disease.’
In accepting the award Dr MacRae stated ‘I’m grateful to the AHA,
Verily and AstraZeneca for believing in my research vision and showing their support by selecting our remarkable team as the recipients
of the One Brave Idea award. The earliest indicators of coronary
heart disease remain unknown, both on a genetic and molecular level.
If we unearth and characterize novel markers in people genetically
prone to heart disease or with early stages of the disease, we can potentially screen the broader population at a younger age to identify
those same markers and discover preventative or pre-disease interventions that can break the cascade towards disease.’
Dr MacRae and his team will have access to the combined expertise
and resources of the three partner organizations, which include the
AHA’s medical and scientific prowess, Verily’s technical expertise in
device engineering, data analytics and software development for clinical applications, and AstraZeneca’s scientific insights and mentoring.