IBM Watson Health has announced plans to make a 10-year, $50 million investment in research collaborations with two separate academic centres - Brigham and Women's Hospital, which is a teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School, and Vanderbilt University Medical centre - to advance the science of artificial intelligence (AI) and its application to major public health issues.

The scientific collaborations with each institution will focus on critical health problems that are ideally suited for AI solutions. Initial areas of study are expected to include the use of AI to improve the utility of electronic health records (EHRs) and claims data to address significant public health issues like patient safety, precision medicine and health equity. The research will also explore physician and patient user experience and interactions with AI technologies.

Drawing on the respective areas of expertise from each organization, the collaborations will be a joint effort among IBM Watson Health's newly appointed vice president and chief science officer, Gretchen Purcell Jackson, M.D., Ph.D., David Bates, M.D., M.S., chief of general internal medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital, and professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School, Kevin Johnson, M.D., M.S., chair of the department of biomedical informatics at Vanderbilt University Medical centre, and Gordon Bernard, M.D., executive vice president for research, at Vanderbilt University Medical centre.