IBM Clinical Genomics Helps with Clinical Decision Making

 by Gene Ostrovsky on Mar 14, 2012 IBM Research – Haifa, Israel has developed a new clinical decision support tool that correlates a patients' unique disease profile against various clinical guidelines and a wide range of previously acquired clinical data from a multitude of patients. The tool, called Clinical Genomics (Cli-G), is designed to provide clinicians with actionable results that outline how to address individual patients' conditions.   The system is currently being tested at the Fondazione IRCCS Istituto Nazionale dei Tumori, a research and cancer treatment center in Italy.  The Institute initiated this collaboration with IBM to enhance patient care through better use of innovative IT solutions. Once physicians make a diagnosis, they will receive personalized insights for their patients, based on medical information, automated interpretation of pathology clinical guidelines, and intelligence from a number of past clinical cases, documented in the hospital information system. In addition to supporting decision-making about treatment, it can provide administrators at Fondazione IRCCS Istituto Nazionale dei Tumori with an aggregated view of patient care, enabling them to evaluate performances and using this knowledge to streamline processes for maximum safety. For example, hospital administrators can drill down into the data to better understand what the guidelines were for insights, what succeeded, and whether treatment quality has improved. Any patient data securely collected from hospitals and health organizations is 'de-identified' or made anonymous through the removal of personal identifying details. The IBM system does not need to know which individuals the information came from in order to draw conclusions. It works by identifying similar cases based on age, sex, symptoms, diagnosis, or other related factors.