A cognitive computing platform featuring data analytics and machine learning tools for acquiring, processing, sorting and analyzing information to connect patient experiences with physicians and provide deep insights; data is acquired and processed from medical documents in many forms, namely, electronic (EHR), scanned, PDF, HTML, image and other flat files, integrated in a scalable pipeline, analyzed through adaptive and learning-based analytics; next-generation machine learning techniques allow a data set to learn from the analysis of past situations in order to better analyze future situations, namely, data teaches itself to produce more accurate results; using workflow or cloud-based SaaS applications, the insights produced by the cognitive computing platform are presented in a way that physicians, back-office staff, payers and other health care providers can easily understand and use