Watson, IBM's supercomputer featuring natural language processing capabilities, achieved celebrity in 2011 by besting two former champions on Jeopardy! Recently opened up to third-party developers, Watson's abilities are being used in new applications tackling a variety of healthcare issues.
Health management solutions provider Welltok is developing an app to provide patients with customized Intelligent Health Itineraries to provide tailored health activities, relevant educational material and condition management programs. Users will converse with the app about their health needs, and Watson's ability to "learn" about the user will result in responses and suggestions tailored to the individual. The app will also reward users for healthy behaviors, further increasing patient engagement.
Medical supply company MD Buyline is developing an app to give hospitals and health systems real-time, data-based advice for making purchasing decisions. The Hippocrates app "will provide users with access to a helpful research assistant that provides fast, evidence based recommendations from a wealth of data, to help ensure medical organizations are making the best decisions for their physicians' and patients' needs," according to a news release.
More companies are expected to make use of Watson's technology to develop new, innovative apps. "The significance here is that IBM will enable other companies, large and small, to embed access to Watson into their products and services, or better yet, to build applications on top of it," said Mohamad Makhzoumi, partner at New Enterprise Associates and board member at Welltok, in a news release. "This could bring about a paradigm shift not only in how people interact with computers, but in how we live our lives."
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