Watson will make its debut in the healthcare industry early next year making recommendations to both doctors and patients. IBM and WellPoint have partnered to bring"evidence-based" medical decision support to you.
What is Watson? Watson is a super computer powered by a server cluster that has a total processing capacity of 80 teraflops (A teraflop is one trillion operations per second).
But Watson is more than a machine. Watson can read using natural language processing and prefers unstructured text. Watson can learn and reason. Watson can even play Jeopardy and win. But that wasn't enough for young Watson. He is a high achiever and is now learning medicine. Hmmm...now I am calling Watson "he". Now that's just like Hal in the movie, "2010".
Last week, I talked about patients who are seeking medical advice from the virtual community, but the average person is poorly informed about medicine and their advice may not be the best. Is Watson the answer? Watson could be the real-time consultant physician who can understand the intent of your question and respond with a prioritized list of recommendations for you to consider. Watson may offer just the type of clinical decision support we have only dreamed of before. Not only will this benefit the individual patient, but hopefully result in a healthier population overall.
WellPoint (Blue Cross/Blue Shield health plan) will pilot Watson in the clinical setting early next year. Stay tuned.
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/358871/IBM_s_Watson_to_Diagnose_Patientshttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/12/ibm-watson-wellpoint_n_958227.html
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