Last April it launched IBM Watson Health. Since that time the company has been busy buying companies including Merge Healthcare, forging partnerships with the likes of Apple, CVS and Johnson and Johnson, hiring a new General Manager and purchasing the unit’s new headquarters in Cambridge, MA.

That’s quite a bit of action in five months, but Steve Gold, CMO for Watson at IBM says the hope is to build a community around attacking the big problems in healthcare in the U.S. and around the world.

“It’s about how do we build a community among the various stakeholders in which all of them stand to gain by coming together and sharing information,” he said.

IBM is throwing a lot of resources at Watson Health and it hopes to use its technology to drive change across the healthcare industry. The Watson Health headquarters will be the center of that, Gold said.

“It’s so much broader than healthcare It’s, about education, prevention and wellness. All of these touchpoint are correlated,” he said.

The new facility will be home to some 700 people initially, but heading to 1,000 in a few years, according to Mike Rhodin, senior vice president of the IBM Watson Group.

PL – This is great. But, Dear Watson, what are you doing to address HUMAN BEHAVIOR since it’s A KEY FACTOR in all health issues? 

Sources: Techcunch – Ron Miller, Fortune – Barb Darrow