Doctor Watson (MD)?

[TheHammer]

http://money.cnn.com/2011/09/12/technol ... hpt=hp_bn4

"Imagine having the ability to take in all the information around a patient's medical care -- symptoms, findings, patient interviews and diagnostic studies," Dr. Sam Nussbaum, WellPoint's (WLP, Fortune 500) chief medical officer, said in a prepared statement.

"Then, imagine using Watson analytic capabilities to consider all of the prior cases, the state-of-the-art clinical knowledge in the medical literature and clinical best practices to help a physician advance a diagnosis and guide a course of treatment," he added.

I do kind of find this intriguing. I realize we're not at the point where computers can do diagnoses alone, but I can really see how this would help put doctors on the right track.

[phongn]

The article is a bit light on some details, but the consideration that Watson gives is not just a "based on the information, here is the one diagnosis" black-and-white decision, but will also show other possible diagnoses. It'll also make suggestions for further information to be gathered from the patient to try and hone in on a possible problem. It's a pretty interesting concept.

(Note: I attended a talk by Watson's principle investigator, David Ferrucci, and he went into some detail about the medical software they're developing).

[Singular Intellect]

This application is one of several mentioned when they first introduced Watson.