Electronic Health Reporter

CognitiveScale, the Cognitive Cloud company, today announced the formation of its Healthcare Business Unit. The new group is dedicated to applying cognitive computing to improve the treatment and care of people with chronic health conditions including cancer, diabetes, respiratory conditions, and stroke. Charles Barnett, a 30-year healthcare industry executive and former executive chairman of the board of Seton Family Healthcare, has been appointed president of the healthcare group.

“CognitiveScale’s new healthcare business group builds upon the great work already underway at large healthcare providers, healthcare insurers and strategic partners,” said Manoj Saxena, chairman, CognitiveScale. “We’re delighted to have one of the industry’s most well-known and respected healthcare visionaries join our leadership team. Charles has already been instrumental in shaping our strategy and offerings in healthcare and has enabled us to deliver impressive results to clients and secure a strong foothold in the healthcare industry.”

The Escalating Costs of Chronic Diseases

Chronic health conditions are on the rise as more than one in two adults and more than one in four children will have at least one chronic condition by the year 2020. Today, more than 25 percent of the population lives with multiple chronic conditions, costing an estimated $2.4 trillion annually in healthcare costs and an additional $1 trillion due to lost productivity and absenteeism.

Meanwhile, the healthcare industry is experiencing an explosion of information coming from patients, healthcare systems, internal computer networks, the Web, and mobile devices. By the year 2020, this data will double every 73 days, making it impossible to effectively manage and use it to proactively identify and address potential health issues before they result in additional doctor’s visits, trips to the emergency room and overnight hospital stays.

Accessing and using this valuable data is critical to the treatment of chronic conditions. Yet more than 80 percent of healthcare data today is often overlooked due to privacy constraints and the fact that it’s difficult to capture, process, and put into context. Known as unstructured or “dark” data, these vital pieces of information often remain trapped in EMRs, lab and imaging reports, physician notes, medical devices, and streaming social data feeds.

Cognitive Clouds Transform Healthcare To Person-Centric Care

CognitiveScale’s technology addresses these challenges by providing a holistic view of a person. This includes the creation of patient profiles that contain data from clinical and non-clinical systems, social, private, and public sources as well as socio-economic, behavioral and lifestyle elements. This enables care managers to better understand a person’s conditions and provide prescriptive, personalized advice and recommendations about their care, diet, activities, medication compliance, and appointments, all while protecting the individual’s privacy, enforcing data security and sovereignty, and adhering to HIPAA compliance. Also, since the technology remembers questions and preferences and is continuously updated, this ensures the information is always current and the recommendations continue to get smarter and more personalized.

“Throughout my career, I’ve witnessed the significant impact of chronic conditions on individuals, their families and the healthcare system. It’s clear that it’s time to manage chronic illness more effectively while addressing the associated costs,” said Dr. Anjum Khurshid, member, Federal Advisory Committee on Health Information Technology. “The work that’s underway at CognitiveScale, and led by a visionary like Charles Barnett, leaves no doubt in my mind that the era of person-centric care fueled by artificial intelligence is here.”

Renowned Healthcare Executive Charles J. Barnett Appointed Business Unit President

As the newly appointed president of CognitiveScale’s healthcare business unit, Mr. Barnett comes with an illustrious 30-year career in healthcare administration. He joins the company after serving as president/CEO of Seton Healthcare Family in Austin and subsequently as president of Healthcare Operations of Ascension Health prior to returning to Seton as executive board chair in July of 2013. Before joining Seton, Mr. Barnett was the vice president and chief operating officer of Fairfax Hospital in Falls Church, VA.

Mr. Barnett is a Fellow of the American College of Healthcare Executives (FACHE) and has earned numerous promotions, awards and accolades from the healthcare industry, former employers, and national and local organizations.

These include being appointed a member of Senator Kirk Watson’s Organizing Committee for the development of a medical school at the University of Texas at Austin. Also, Mr. Barnett has served as Chairman of the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce and was named its 2009 Austinite of the Year. He was also Chair of the Capitol Area United Way, Austin Partners in Education, Children’s Optimal Health, and the Texas Catholic Healthcare Association. He received the Heart Association’s Distinguished Service Award, the Bicentennial Medal from the Seton Legacy of Charity for significant contributions in social services, education and healthcare, and the Rostow Award for community leaders who have made a difference in the lives of children.

Mr. Barnett earned a master’s degree in Healthcare Administration from Xavier University and in 2013 was awarded the university’s Distinguished Alumni Service Award. He received a bachelor’s and master’s degree from the University of Cincinnati. Mr. Barnett has also authored articles on a variety of healthcare issues and has presented at numerous national healthcare conferences.

“With healthcare costs continuing to escalate and the prevalence of chronic diseases on the rise, the United States will soon enter a phase where the trillions of dollars spent on treating chronic diseases each year will no longer be possible,” said Mr. Barnett. “Our new healthcare group is already making great strides in addressing these issues while making a deep and meaningful impact on individuals with chronic conditions and the healthcare industry as a whole.”

About CognitiveScale

CognitiveScale powers standards-based cognitive clouds, which are revolutionizing big data and analytics markets. Cognitive clouds are a new class of data interpretation and learning systems that weave cognitive intelligence into business processes and applications. They work on massive amounts of multi structured data including text, images and video to generate actionable insights from dark data–data that is not machine readable, not easily accessible, or not leveraged. Our cognitive cloud platform, called Insights Fabric™, delivers Insights-as-a-Service and accelerates the creation of industry and domain optimized cognitive applications and processes.