An unlikely set of partners teamed up to capitalize on a gathering flood of health-related personal information.

International Business Machines Corp. unveiled on Monday a partnership with Apple Inc., Johnson & Johnson and Medtronic Inc., as well as the acquisition of two medical-data software companies. Known as Watson Health, the effort transfers IBM’s experience in data processing to the sensitive field of health care, part of an evolving strategy to pool and analyze data from other companies, such as Twitter Inc. and the Weather Channel. It will attempt to leverage the tech company’s analytics and health-care software businesses into a new generation of apps for patients and providers.

The project reflects a growing view among technology vendors and medical providers that patient information that could yield valuable insights—and business opportunities—is locked up in proprietary silos. Such insights are increasingly valuable as the payment approach in health care shifts toward rewarding favorable health outcomes rather than services rendered. Watson Health would marshal huge amounts of scrambled and aggregated patient data in the service of providing individualized health care that might improve outcomes and cut costs.

Apple, Johnson & Johnson and Medtronic each will share revenue with IBM on any apps they sell.

Similar big-data efforts under way in health care include Optum Labs, a collaboration between UnitedHealth Group and the Mayo Clinic, in which researchers mine clinical and insurance data in search of micro-patterns that give clues to early indicators of disease and help to tailor treatments. Precision Medicine, an initiative announced by President Barack Obama earlier this year, will combine genetic data with information from fitness trackers.