IBM names Watson Healthcare Advisory Board

IBM has named its Watson Advisory Board, comprised of medical leaders with expertise in areas such as primary care, oncology, biomedical informatics and medical innovation. The board will provide IBM with insights on healthcare issues that could be positively impacted by Watson technology adoption.

The advisory board will focus on medical industry trends, clinical imperatives, regulatory considerations, privacy concerns and patient and clinician expectations around the Watson technology and how it can be incorporated into clinician workflows, Armonk, N.Y.-based IBM said. The initial nine-member board includes:

• Charles Barnett, president, healthcare operations and CEO, Ascension Health in Edmundson, Mo.
• Michael Barr, MD, senior vice president, American College of Physicians.
• Herbert Chase, MD, professor of clinical medicine in biomedical informatics, Columbia University in New York City.
• Lynda Chin, MD, chair, department of genomic medicine, MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.
• Chris Coburn, executive director of innovation, Cleveland Clinic.
• Douglas Henley, MD, executive vice president and CEO, American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP).
• Michael K. Magill, MD, department of family and preventive medicine, University of Utah in Salt Lake City.
• Steven Shapiro, MD, chief medical & scientific officer, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.
• David R. Spriggs, MD, vice chair experimental therapeutics, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City.

Watson represents analytical and decision support systems that use deep content analysis and evidence-based reasoning and natural language processing.