International Business Machines


IBM

division Watson Health is integrating IBM Digital Health Pass with Healthy Return to provide solutions that ease the challenges arising from implementing COVID-19 testing and vaccine requirements.

IBM Watson Health has designed a Digital Health Pass, which helps users to share their COVID-19 test results and vaccination data electronically. Healthcare providers, labs and pharmacies can provide digital confirmation of the records in addition to paper records of these test results and vaccination.

This will enable organizations to determine whether employees or customers have the correct status to enter premises.

The individuals who share their personal health data will have complete control over their information. IBM has created Digital Pass with careful consideration of user privacy, so that personal data is not misused.

The Digital Pass solution has been created using IBM blockchain technology, which allows users to remain in control of their data that is stored in an encrypted wallet. It is worth mentioning that IBM does not store this data in their central database.

IBM Digital Pass has been created to support existing and emerging industry standards, so that organizations can work seamlessly and securely.

IBM facing stiff competition in Healthcare IT Sector

Watson Platform, Watson Health and Watson Internet of Things (IoT) are notable offerings, which are included in IBM Solutions Software and have contributed to 32% of 2020 revenues.

However, IBM is facing stiff competition in most of its markets. Particularly in the health care IT companies like

Microsoft


MSFT

,

Accenture


ACN

and

Cognizant


CTSH

are providing services similar to IBM.

IBM’s higher profit on lower revenues indicates that the company has been lowering costs to maintain profits. The scope for further cost-cutting is limited and it can negatively impact on product quality. It has also delayed the launch of a new product like Digital Card causing it to lag its peers.

Microsoft has launched a COVID-19 vaccine dashboard that tracks the administration of vaccines aligned with the federal goal. This AI-supported dashboard has been created to reach the federal goal of 100M vaccines in 100 days.

Accenture has designed a vaccine management solution that tracks vaccination data, supply management, and analytics and reporting utilizing Accenture Applied intelligence.

Accenture has created this solution to combine healthcare services with AI to facilitate faster and more efficient solutions for surveillance and overall immunization information management.

Cognizant has created an app to assess COVID-19 risk, share the information with doctors and take decisions faster without going to hospital, thereby reducing transmission risks.

Cognizant built this app with Microsoft Healthcare Bot service integrated with Microsoft Azure-based authentication.

Nevertheless, IBM’s highly leveraged balance sheet and late entry into the market has impacted its share price negatively. In the year-to-date period, shares IBM have declined 2.2%, while the same for Microsoft, Accenture and Cognizant have gained 50.5%, 43.7% and 1.2%, respectively.

Currently, IBM has a Zacks Rank #5 (Strong Sell).

You can see


the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here

.

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