From the January 2017 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine

• Oncology and genomics: To help transform cancer care for patients and providers. From research to treatment, cognitive computing can help physicians transform health care for the more than 1.6 million Americans who develop cancer annually and the nearly 14 million currently fighting it by helping to redefine how clinical trials are conducted, treatments are considered and care is personalized.

• Life sciences: To help advance more rapid and efficient drug discovery. With the cost of developing a single drug now exceeding $2.6 billion, cognitive systems can help increase collaboration among teams, help identify new targets for research or provide data to assist researchers in determining if a medicine can be used in other diseases.


• Government: To improve the value of health and human services, lower costs and have a meaningful impact on people’s lives. To achieve better and more sustainable results, Watson Health enables health and human services professionals to access and use data related to these external factors. This can help transform current systems of care by providing a more holistic view of their clients’ health and well-being.

• Value-based care: To help manage at-risk populations, connect with consumers and improve patient engagement. Cognitive computing may help support emerging value-based care models by collecting information at each step of the patient life cycle, then providing analytics to help improve decision making and execution. The magnitude of change unfolding in health care is profound, and that is unlikely to change in the short term. In the future, Watson Health will aim to continue to support people and professionals in their efforts. For example:

• Imaging: To expand the role of medical imaging for better care. In this area, IBM Watson Health’s goal is for cognitive imaging platforms to potentially help physicians by providing them with insights so they can determine which potential imaging procedures may be most appropriate.

• Consumers: To help empower individuals to lead healthier lives. Watson Health believes that, one day, cognitive computing may provide individuals with more feedback on their own health habits, and could encourage them to change personal behaviors as a way to maintain or improve health. Through technology that supports health experts, they can work to achieve better outcomes.

About the author: B. Dusty Majumdar is the chief marketing officer for IBM Watson Health.

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