The IBM Innovation Exchange Team (IX), based in the IBM technology campus in Dublin, Ireland, has a large focus on participating in research projects funded by the European Commission’s Horizon Europe Program (Formerly H2020).
One such project that is currently ongoing is BD4QoL (Big Data for Quality of Life), which is funded under a Data & AI program call by the European Commission with the primary objective of using AI assisted applications and technology to improve the quality of life for post operative head and neck cancer survivors.
Underpinning the clinical trial aspect in the project is what is called the Patient Empowerment Platform. This provides an unobtrusive and privacy compliant patient monitoring and support environment, which integrates various componentry with big data driven AI algorithms and in-silico models, and which interfaces with the patient’s mobile and wearable devices (via the mobile app - mApp) for real-time assessment of individual Quality of Life (QoL) metrics, which will help to guide timely and personalized interventions. The empowerment platform also interfaces with clinicians via the Point of Care tool (PoC).
At the heart of the patient empowerment platform are state-of-the-art IBM Watsonx services, such as IBM Watsonx Assistant/NLU, working in conjunction with a Nodejs application called BIDI, developed by the IBM IX team to tailor the Watsonx Services to the specific requirements of the clinical trial protocol. Bidi is IBM custom-developed code in BD4QoL that works harmoniously with Watsonx Services to provide the platform's core logic and intelligence that enables dialog and conversation flows between patients and clinicians and interconnects the various application components in the patient empowerment platform in an intelligent and cohesive manner. It also manages and enriches the clinical alerts that are sent to the doctors to provide them with the best insights possible to assist with the patient’s post operative care and quality of life interventions.
Watsonx/BIDI received recognition from the European Commission by being selected for their Innovation Radar portal, for furthering the state-of-the-art for chatbot deployments supporting patients in post operative care. The EU Innovation Radar team examines the hundreds of projects which the EU funds and acknowledges those research outputs/results that exhibit especially strong innovative value and the potential to make an immediate real-world impact.
