Siemens, IBM Watson partner for Population Health Management

IBM Watson Health and Siemens Healthineers today announced a five-year global health-focused alliance in Population Health Management (PHM) to enhance care delivery and control the cost of care.
"The alliance aims to help hospitals, health systems, integrated delivery networks and other providers, deliver value-based care to patients with complex, chronic and costly conditions such as heart disease and cancer," Siemens Healthineers said in a statement.
Siemens Healthineers and IBM Watson Health intend to help healthcare professionals navigate changes propelled by a growing volume and diversity of health data, an aging global population, increasing prevalence of chronic diseases, changes in healthcare payment models, digitisation and consumerisation of healthcare, it added.

Commenting on the development, Siemens Healthineers Head of Services Matthias Platsch said: "Combining our strengths, Siemens Healthineers and IBM can effectively help providers transition to a value-based healthcare environment."
The new alliance fits perfectly in to the services business of Siemens Healthineers, he added.
As part of the alliance, Siemens Healthineers will offer PHM solutions and services from IBM Watson Health, the company said.

These offerings are designed to help meet hospital and healthcare systems' demands for value-based care analytics and reporting, and patient, it added.
"Siemens Healthineers will also provide consulting services to support providers in their transition to value-based care," the statement said.

Under the alliance, it is the intent of IBM and Siemens to work together to jointly develop and deploy new PHM offerings leveraging each company's expertise and assets, including those added to the Watson Health portfolio from acquisitions such as Phytel and Explorys, it added.
"We are at an unprecedented time in healthcare on how patient outcomes. Mature and developing markets are increasingly focused optimised, quality is standardised among individuals and across populations, and costs are reduced," IBM Watson Health General Manager Deborah DiSanzo said.
Siemens and IBM are ideal partners to work at the forefront of this evolution and enable personalised healthcare in the US and globally, she added.