I recently attended the annual Health IT Insight conference, which was very useful knowledge by the way, and one of the most interesting presentations was presented by IBM and how Watson can be applied within the Clinical Decision Support process.
You've probably all heard about Watson, the IBM computer that defeated two of the greatest champions on the game show Jeopardy! Jeopardy showed off the power and sophistication of Watson. Watson is able to understand spoken natural language, decipher it and research highly probable answers. Watson can process 200 Million pages of data (I actually think it can handle much more than that now) in three seconds. So how can this technology be applied to healthcare?
IBM has a range of ideas but I think the most immediate application is as a decision support tool for clinicians where it can, in real-time, recommend treatment options or provide a second opinion for clinicians to consider as part of diagnosis and treatment planning.
Personally, I would love to see Watson applied to a high-tech minute clinic. Minute clinics are those drop-in clinics popping up at your local drug store to treat simple problems (sore throats, rashes). I know we're probably still centuries away from a high-tech unmanned minute clinic, but imagine if a patient can identify themselves using a portable health record on a smart card to a health kiosk running with Watson's intelligence. After a minute of discussion, a vending machine dispenses a prescription drug for treatment. It sounds cool!
