IBM Offers Technology to Transform Heart Health

On Monday, the first day of American Heart Month, the American Heart Association (AHA) announced plans to develop a workplace health solution that leverages the cognitive computing power of IBM Watson.

In the first application of Watson to cardiovascular disease, AHA, IBM, and Welltok will create a new offering that combines AHA’s science-based metrics and health assessments with cognitive analytics, delivered on Welltok’s health optimization platform.

The effort is intended to help alleviate the burden of cardiovascular diseases, which affect more than 85 million Americans today.

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The program will help assess both the employer’s workplace health environment, as well as employee health based on AHA metrics. Core to the offering is a new Workplace Health Achievement Index, which AHA also launched Monday.

The Index uses best practices to measure and rank corporate health initiatives, assessing companies on their workplace health culture. The Index is a result of efforts by the AHA’s CEO Roundtable, an organization of some of America’s largest employers dedicated to workplace health.

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They have served as a learning laboratory to develop, test and refine the Index. In the new offering being developed, Watson will uncover cognitive insights by analyzing data from the Index to provide guidance on how an employer can support employee health, such as informing how corporations design, tailor and deliver health benefits and health promotion programs that maximize the health of the workforce.

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Using Welltok’s platform online or via mobile, an individual employee could opt to complete AHA’s My Life Check questionnaire, which measures Life’s Simple 7, the key cardiovascular health indicators—not smoking, eating healthy, being physically active, achieving and maintaining a healthy weight, managing blood pressure, controlling cholesterol, and reducing blood sugar.

Welltok leverages consumer insights gained from the questionnaire and data collected via wearable fitness trackers, wireless-enabled scales and blood pressure cuffs to provide personalized recommendations to help the individual make healthy choices that could reduce their risk of cardiovascular disease.