News Feature | October 31, 2014

Real-Time Analytics Provide Early Warning

Katie Wike

By Katie Wike, contributing writer

Data Analytics

IBM and AirStrip are teaming up to provide streaming analytics and improve quality of care for chronically ill patients.

Real-time data analytics from IBM and AirStrip are being deployed at University of Michigan Center for Integrative Research in Critical Care in order to monitor chronically ill patients and warn providers of problems through multiple body sensors and medical records.

"By mining multiple data streams, looking at real-time analytics and applying our adaptive learning algorithms, we believe we can come up with new computed vital signs that are even more valuable than the signals we're monitoring today," said Kevin Ward, MD, UM CIRCC's executive director and UM professor of emergency medicine, in a press release. "Ultimately, we believe that clinical decision support solutions coupled with our analytic methodologies could help us improve patient outcomes while reducing overall costs in the healthcare system."

Government Health IT and mHealth News report the system will allow providers to both identify and predict life-threatening conditions in chronically ill patients. The medical complication the analytics program will work to warn providers of is hemodynamic decompensation, which experts say will improve outcomes and reduce overall admissions.

“Predictive analytics have the potential to provide clinicians the ability to see and take action on much more of the potentially available data on their patients, and course-correct sooner when a complication presents,” said Sean Hogan, vice president and general manager of IBM Healthcare.

“With its ability to assimilate vast amounts of data and provide real time analytics, IBM effectively complements AirStrip’s established leadership position in mobile interoperability,” said Alan Portela, CEO of AirStrip. “Our products hold the promise of measurably improving the clinical, operational and financial bottom lines in healthcare, delivering innovation that can measurably strengthen patient care while addressing real-world challenges faced by providers.”