IBM and Wellpoint put #ibmwatson to work in Healthcare

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Last February, IBM introduced Watson on the Jeopardy! game show. These three shows were re-aired this week in the United States. I wrote a series of blog posts back then:

• [Watson: What is the Smartest Machine on Earth?]
• [Homework Assignment: Understanding Jeopardy!]
• [Homework Assignment: Results and Observations]
• [Watson: What's in that 1 TB?]
• [Tucson Watch Event: Jeopardy!]
• [IBM Watson: Business Intelligence, Data Retrieval, and Text Mining]
• [IBM Watson: How to Build Your Own Watson, Jr. in your Basement]

This last one on how to build your own Watson, Jr. has gotten over 69,000 hits! While several people told me they plan to build their own, I have not heard back from anyone yet, so perhaps it is taking longer than expected.

IBM and Wellpoint announced this week that it will be [putting Watson to work] in healthcare. [Wellpoint] is one of the largest health benefits company in the United States, with over 70 million people served through its affiliate plans and its various subsidiaries. I am one of the development lab advocates for Wellpoint, and have been proud to work with the account team to help Wellpoint achieve their goals.

This marks the first commercial deployment of IBM Watson. This is a joint effort. IBM will develop the base IBM Watson for healthcare platform, and Wellpoint will then develop healthcare-specific solutions to run on this platform. Watson's ability to analyze the meaning and context of human language, and quickly process vast amounts of information to suggest options targeted to a patient's circumstances, can assist decision makers, such as physicians and nurses, in identifying the most likely diagnosis and treatment options for their patients.

Is this going to put doctors out of business? No. Physicians find it challenging to read and understand hundreds or thousands of pages of text, and put this into their practice. IBM Watson, on the other hand, can scan through hundred of millions of pages in just a few seconds to help answer a question or provide recommendations. Together, doctors armed with access to IBM Watson will be able to improve the quality and effectiveness of medical care.

From an insurance point of view, improving the quality of care will help reduce medical mistakes and malpractice lawsuits. This is a win-win for everyone except ambulance-chasing lawyers!

technorati tags: IBM, Wellpoint, Healthcare, Watson, Jeopardy