Excerpted from Wired UK: AI doctors will become ‘as ubiquitous as stethoscopes’:
Using systems such as Watson – perhaps best known for winning the U.S. gameshow Jeopardy! in 2010 – all that data can be translated at the point of care into usable, relevant data. It also allows doctors to share information and expertise, potentially on a global scale.
Democratized data could also help improve doctor/patient relations, and improve pre-emptive diagnoses. “Each of us, as individuals, will produce in our lifetimes 300 million books worth of data,” he explained. “It’s the data that’s on your wearable; it’s the data that, as genomic testing becomes more prevalent, is related to that; it’s the data in terms of the social and financial determinants of health; and it’s the healthcare data in your medical records. There’s an opportunity now to translate it.”
Looking to the future, Rhee sees a “cognitive system” such as IBM’s Watson supercomputer having a similar role to play in human healthcare. Such systems, he said, will become as ubiquitous as the humble stethoscope.
To see the full discussion on AI’s future in healthcare, presented by IBM’s Dr. Kyu Rhee, watch:
It’s extremely interested to think about a future where machine learning is possible in healthcare. We have no doubt that technology can get us there. However, we first need to “democratize data” at the point of care, as Dr. Rhee mentioned above in his quote. That, of course, requires interoperability between all applications that harness patient data.
Democratizing health data is possible only by using a modern healthcare integration engine (like Corepoint Integration Engine). Doing so allows innovative organizations to create a Strategic Data Framework from which all data can be connected and exchanged. Modern exchange standards such as HL7 FHIR will allow the integration of data from mobile applications and even wearables, which will create the “cognitive system” from which AI systems, such as IBM Watson, can make instant, usable data at the point of care.
Pretty cool technology, indeed!
