Top 10 Reasons IBM Watson Health Is Positioned To Change Health Care

By now, most people are familiar with IBM Watson, the supercomputer that can process massive amounts of structured and unstructured data and ultimately learn and produce actionable insights. Over the next decade this system will have major impacts on health care.  Here are ten reasons that this will happen:

1. Watson itself of course! This system is an incredible piece of technology and is likely to continue to undergo further innovations over time. The ability to process absolutely massive amounts of structured and unstructured data in incredibly short amounts of time along with its ability to learn from this process is the greatest advantage.
2.  The advent of precision medicine. We are at the very beginnings of providing care at a much more individualized level. Genome sequencing is fairly inexpensive and fast and other areas of research such as proteomics, gut microbiome etc. will all allow us to understand diseases at a more "personal" level. Using this information requires the ability to process large volumes of data at high speeds along with analyzing that data's significance in a real time environment with an ever expanding database of literature. This is essentially impossible for humans to do on their own.
3. The need for more sophisticated diagnostic and decision support tools integrated into EHR's. The current decision support tools are fairly cumbersome, relatively incapable of learning and often can be as much of a nuisance as as a help. Integrating Watson into the EHR and using it to drive diagnostic and decision support tools would allow for greater access to massive databases, patient data derived from external sources, imaging studies and digitalized pathology slides. This can all be accomplished rapidly in real time. A tool of this caliber is what the provider really needs. Such a tool could potentially reduce the large variation in the cost of care that eludes any rationale explanation and improve outcomes. This tool is not replacing the provider but instead, augmenting their diagnostic and treatment capabilities.
4. The need for better ways to engage and educate patients. Watson could not only provide educational materials for patients that are up-to-date but factor in patient preferences, languages spoken and educational level. Patients who are better informed about their condition are more likely to make decisions that are compatible with their preferences and have better outcomes. Additionally, this tool could learn from the decisions that patients make along with reading data generated from their wearables and other sources and adjust input to the patient.
5.  The ecosystem concept using the cloud makes this technology far more available for those that wish to innovate outside of IBM. This works to the advantage of both IBM who can "rent" the Watson cloud and to those who need access to this powerful technology to develop their product.
6. The ability to address the issue of security more effectively. There is little doubt that security is and will continue to be a major concern as we move forward with the digitalization of personal health information. Companies like IBM have the ability to produce the needed security for this sensitive information.
7. The partnerships that IBM has recently announced with several companies that have massive databases from which Watson can draw along with the diversity of information in these databases will provide the needed information for Watson to begin to generate useful insights. Other partnerships will likely follow.
8.  The recent partnerships with several large medical care institutions will allow for the testing of Watsons clinical abilities and also give Watson the opportunity to learn from more actual patient data.
9. The recent partnership with a company that is one of the larger EHR manufacturers in the country along with integrating Watson into this EHR are the first steps towards this technology becoming commonplace in EHR's that were not specifically designed with Watson in mind. Any product that is to have widespread success in the health care arena must be integrated into the EHR and be able to generate insights rapidly. Watson can do this.
10. The level of funding being put behind Watson Health is substantial and likely will be necessary given the complexities of health care and the inevitable hurdles and roadblocks that will arise. A half-hearted effort would likely fail.

This will be an incredibly exciting decade and it will interesting to see how Watson's role grows and if another technology behemoth creates a competing product.