NASHVILLE and ARMONK, N.Y., April 3, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM (NYSE: IBM) and Lipscomb University College of Pharmacy announced an initiative to help train the next-generation of pharmacists on business analytics and insight-derived decision making. As the first college of pharmacy in the nation to add IBM Watson Analytics into its curriculum, Lipscomb University is helping their students graduate with an understanding of data and business analytics that can be applied in the workforce.

At a time when health care companies expect individuals at all levels of an organization to act on data-driven insights, future pharmacists need to analyze and understand data to help deliver more informed answers in patient care. Lipscomb University College of Pharmacy is the first college of pharmacy in the nation to provide students full access to Watson Analytics and trainings as part of its curriculum to help graduates fulfill this need for their future employers.

"Lipscomb University has been at the forefront of the Pharmaceutical education field – offering not just pharmacy focused degrees but also dual degrees to help our graduates in areas such as Health Care Informatics," said Roger Davis, Dean of Lipscomb University's College of Pharmacy & Health Sciences. "Being the first College of Pharmacy in the nation to offer access to Watson Analytics continues this mission by helping give our student pharmacists an advantage in predictive analytics and data mining, learning, and research. The knowledge they will gain from this collaboration will help provide the competitive edge needed to succeed in largely data driven health care careers."

Watson Analytics is a cloud-based analytics service that enables users to upload accumulated data and find actionable insights without deep technical or coding expertise. The easy-to-use interface combined with cognitive capabilities like natural language processing guides users through advanced analytics. Students will learn how to analyze their dataset as well as integrate new external data sources into their existing data to uncover the insights they need.

"Organizations no longer need to rely only on data scientists or information technology (IT) personnel to prepare and interpret data. With Watson Analytics, now health care professionals along with marketing, sales, operations and human resource professionals can get answers they need from all types of data – without the need for a data scientist," said Randy Messina, Global Public Sector Leader, Watson Analytics, IBM. "We're excited to work with Lipscomb's College of Pharmacy on integrating Watson Analytics into pharmacy education and helping educate the next generation of pharmacists."

For more information on Watson Analytics, visit: www.watsonanalytics.com

About Lipscomb University College of Pharmacy

Founded in 2007, Lipscomb University College of Pharmacy is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education and offers a four-year program leading to the Doctor of Pharmacy degree. Its graduates place in the top 10 percent of all colleges of pharmacy with their most recent NAPLEX scores at an average of 96.10 percent pass rate. Its students have also achieved an overall 97 percent pass rate on the MPJE exam. In addition, Lipscomb University College of Pharmacy graduates have a 100 percent job placement rate. For more information, visit pharmacy.lipscomb.edu.

SOURCE IBM

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