[June 22, 2016]

IBM Selects Sheridan Healthcare for Global Watson Health Medical Imaging Collaborative

Sheridan Healthcare, the physician services division of AMSURG, announced today that it has been selected by IBM (News - Alert) as one of the foundational members in the new Watson Health medical imaging collaborative, a global initiative comprising sixteen leading health systems, academic medical centers, ambulatory radiology providers and imaging technology companies. The collaborative aims to bring cognitive imaging into daily medical practice to help doctors address breast, lung and other cancers; diabetes; eye health; brain disease; and heart disease and related conditions, such as stroke. IBM Watson is the first commercially available cognitive computing capability and is delivered through the cloud. Watson analyzes extremely large volumes of unstructured data, understands complex natural-language questions and proposes evidence-based answers. IBM Watson Health and the Watson Health Cloud platform were launched in April 2015 to accelerate healthcare innovation by empowering doctors, researchers and insurers to uncover insights from the massive amounts of personal health data that are created and shared daily.

Members of the collaborative will be putting Watson to work to extract insights from previously "invisible" unstructured imaging data and combine them with a broad variety of data to help physicians make personalized care decisions relevant to a specific patient while building a body of knowledge to benefit broader patient populations. This information may include data from an electronic health record, radiology and pathology reports, lab results, doctors' progress notes, medical journals, clinical care guidelines and published outcomes studies, among other sources.

Sheridan willserve as a leading clinical partner in the IBM medical imaging collaborative, which hopes to leverage Watson's unique capabilities to extract greater insights and value from imaging data and improve cost management. Sheridan was chosen for its deep clinical expertise and its commitment to providing high-performance, standards-based imaging innovations. "As the nation's largest hospital-based radiology services provider and a leading provider of teleradiology services, Sheridan has the depth and breadth of experience to provide the best clinical and operational guidance and expertise," said Raleigh Heard Jr., vice president of radiology services at Sheridan Healthcare. "We're honored to have been selected and we look forward to working with IBM to develop a new generation of data-driven healthcare applications and solutions specific to radiology."

"Sheridan is committed to constantly driving quality improvement," said Maria M. Rodriguez, MD, MBA, Sheridan's senior vice president of radiology services. "Adding IBM Watson's cognitive computing capabilities to our own radiology quality initiatives is really moving the needle on further improving patient care in this arena."

"At a time when powerful insights come at the intersection of diverse data sets, medical images remain largely disconnected from mainstream health information," said Anne Le Grand, vice president of Imaging for IBM Watson Health. "Working together in new ways across the healthcare ecosystem the IBM Watson Health medical imaging collaborative aims to address this and other challenges that stand in the way of realizing the true value of imaging in health care. We're honored that Sheridan Healthcare is participating in this endeavor with so many other esteemed organizations worldwide."

With more than 120 programs and 300 providers, Sheridan Healthcare has the nation's largest hospital-based radiology services group. Its 10 years' experience in radiology has allowed Sheridan Healthcare to develop industry-leading infrastructure, resources and clinical experience designed to support its clinical providers, patients and hospital partners.

For more detailed information about how the work of the Watson Health medical imaging collaborative could help transform care, please see IBM's announcement about the collaborative.

About Sheridan Healthcare, Inc.
Sheridan Healthcare, the physician services division of AMSURG, is a leading provider of multi-specialty outsourced physician services to hospitals, ambulatory surgery centers and other healthcare facilities, primarily in the areas of anesthesiology, neonatology, emergency medicine and radiology. Sheridan, its subsidiaries and affiliates currently operate in 30 states and employ more than 3,800 physicians and other healthcare professionals. Sheridan's anesthesiology division, established in 1953, is the leading anesthesia services provider in the country. In addition to physician and allied health services, Sheridan also provides support, training, clinical research and management in non-clinical areas. Sheridan is recognized by the National Committee for Quality Assurance as a certified physician organization.

View source version on businesswire.com: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160622006366/en/

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]