Is IBM Really Making Progress with Watson in Healthcare?

Recent media reports have cast doubt on the benefits of IBM's Watson computing system in healthcare, but the company isn't taking the criticism lying down. "I feel it is imperative to set the record straight," John Kelly III, senior vice president of cognitive solutions and IBM research, wrote in a blog post for IBM. IBM has placed a big bet on healthcare, Kelly said.  "We know that AI can make a big difference in solving medical challenges and supporting the work of the healthcare industry," he said, adding that the company also sees an enormous business opportunity in this area as the adoption of AI increases. He highlighted three distinct cancer tools that IBM has developed: Watson for Oncology, which provides treatment options that augment an oncologists' own expertise; Watson for Clinical Trial Matching, which helps match patients with clinical trials; and Watson for Genomics, which uses genetic sequencing to make strides towards personalized oncology. Kelly said IBM is working with cancer institutes like Memorial Sloan Kettering and Mayo Clinic to evolve and refine these tools, which are now in use at 230 hospitals and health organizations globally and have nearly doubled the number of patients they've reached in the first six months of the year to 84,000. "We have always believed that the role of technology is to assist a doctor in delivering better care and patient outcomes," Kelly said. "Therefore, the first question we asked ourselves was, 'can Watson he...
Source: MDDI - Category: Medical Devices Authors: Tags: Digital Health Source Type: news