Watson robot has been tasked to revolutionize the healthcare market.

As you may know, the IBM Watson robot featured on Jeopardy earlier this year for its impressive showcase of generating answers from a large volume of unstructured data (raw data, text) and in the natural processing language. Watson is a heavyweight contender, which has sparred with and beat the best Jeopardy contestants, including Ken Jennings. This supercomputer requires the computing power of 90 computer servers to operate.

According to IBM, “The goal is to have computers start to interact in natural human terms across a range of applications and processes, understanding the questions that humans ask and providing answers that humans can understand and justify.”

Implications for Healthcare

Watson has been veered the AI with the potential to revolutionize the healthcare industry. Watson works with big names such as Wellpoint and Nuance. Since Watson’s Jeopardy debut, it has made great strides in improving clinical voice recognition, natural language processing, and memory retrieval. Furthermore, Watson is able to process 200 million pages of information in less than 3 seconds.

As technology enables more powerful computing and compact, we may see Watson robot in the role of a physician assistant to provide medical diagnostic support.
Ideally the Watson robot enables Clinical Decision Support for providers that must filter through an large volume of information.

Watson to improve Nuance Dragon Speech

IBM Watson robot works with Nuance, a speech recognition developer, which provides the Dragon products. IBM and Nuance are committed to a five year project to advance next generation natural language speech technologies, which will later be commercialized by Nuance. IBM also designated Nuance its preferred business partner for speech technologies.

Watson’s ability to analyze the meaning and context of human language, and quickly process information to find precise answers can assist decision makers, such as physicians and nurses, unlock important knowledge and facts buried within huge volumes of information, and offer answers they may not have considered to help validate their own ideas or hypotheses.

Watson works with Wellpoint Insurance Group

WellPoint is one of the largest insurance groups in the US (the largest by some counts) with one in nine Americans participating. Wellpoint is now working with IBM to commercialize the Watson technology, to bring evidence-based information to care providers.

The WellPoint application will combine data from three sources:

1. A patient’s chart and electronic records (EMR) that a doctor or hospital has
2. The insurance company’s history of medicines and treatments
3. Watson’s huge library of textbooks and medical journals.

IBM says the computer can then sift through it all and answer a question in seconds, providing several possible diagnoses or treatments, ranked in order of the computer’s confidence, along with the basis for its answer.

“With medical information doubling every five years and health care costs increasing, Watson has tremendous potential for applications that improve the efficiency of care and reduce wait times for diagnosis and treatment by enabling clinicians with access to the best clinical data the moment they need it,” said Manoj Saxena, general manager, Watson Solutions, IBM Software Group. “WellPoint’s commitment to innovation and their work to improve how care is delivered and benefits administered make them an ideal partner for IBM’s software and services to pioneer new efficiencies in health care.”