Watson Goes to Work on Health Care

IBM's Watson supercomputer's avatar answers Jeopardy question.

Image: Wikipedia

IBM didn’t develop a supercomputer capable of winning at Jeopardy just to pull in game show money. The company announced a deal this morning with health insurance giant WellPoint to use the Watson supercomputer to parse health care information.

It’s the first commercial application for Watson, the computer most famous for taking on Jeopardy champions and whipping them at their own game.

IBM and WellPoint have agreed to use Watson to analyze healthcare data for the insurance company’s customers to help doctors and nurses diagnose and treat conditions patients could have.

"There are breathtaking advances in medical science and clinical knowledge, however; this clinical information is not always used in the care of patients. Imagine having the ability to take in all the information around a patient's medical care -- symptoms, findings, patient interviews and diagnostic studies. Then, imagine using Watson analytic capabilities to consider all of the prior cases, the state-of-the-art clinical knowledge in the medical literature and clinical best practices to help a physician advance a diagnosis and guide a course of treatment," said Dr. Sam Nussbaum, WellPoint's Chief Medical Officer, in a release. "We believe this will be an invaluable resource for our partnering physicians and will dramatically enhance the quality and effectiveness of medical care they deliver to our members."

The companies did not say how much WellPoint would pay for access to Watson’s computing power. But it’s a fair bet the largest publicly-traded health insurer is forking over more than the $1 million the computer won on Jeopardy.

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