Computer giant IBM has chosen a healthcare industry veteran to lead its new Watson Health artificial intelligence unit, tapping Deborah DiSanzo as general manager.
DiSanzo comes to IBM after serving as CEO of Philips Healthcare from 2012 to 2014. She held multiple roles at Philips since joining the company with its acquisition of Agilent in 2001, including leading the company's patient monitoring and healthcare informatics units.
As head of Watson Health, DiSanzo will lead more than 2,000 IBM personnel in building a business based on Watson technology. IBM last month announced a plan to acquire Merge Healthcare as part of a bid to jump-start the use of Watson for medical applications.
IBM made several other Watson-related announcements in an opening ceremony on September 10 for the company's new headquarters in Cambridge, MA. It has introduced IBM Watson Health Cloud for Life Sciences Compliance, designed to help biomedical companies deploy infrastructure and applications while meeting regulatory requirements for hosting, accessing, and sharing regulated data.
Meanwhile, IBM Watson Care Manager is a population health application that helps medical professionals develop patient engagement programs. It integrates capabilities from Watson Health and Apple's HealthKit and ResearchKit software frameworks.
Finally, IBM revealed a number of new research partners for Watson Health, ranging from academic medical centers to research companies and pharmaceutical firms.
