The technology giant formed Watson Health medical-imaging collaborative, which includes 16 members from health systems, academic medical centers and imaging-tech vendors.
The collaborative will help doctors to bring cognitive imaging to address breast, lung, and other cancers. It will also help to deal with diabetes, eye health, brain disease, heart disease and related conditions, such as stroke.
Members will use the Watson to extract insights from previously invisible unstructured imaging data and combine that with a broad variety of data from other sources.
This process will enable physicians to take personalized care decisions relevant to a specific patient while building a body of knowledge to benefit broader patient populations.
The information being provided include data from electronic health records, radiology and pathology reports, lab results, doctors’ progress notes, medical journals, clinical care guidelines and published outcomes studies.
Agfa HealthCare, Anne Arundel Medical Center, Baptist Health South Florida, University of, Miami Health System and IBM company Merge Healthcare are some of the founding members of the collaborative.
IBM Watson Health’s imaging vice president Anne Le Grand said: "With the ability to draw insights from massive volumes of integrated structured and unstructured data sources, cognitive computing could transform how clinicians diagnose, treat and monitor patients.
"Through IBM’s medical imaging collaborative, Watson may create opportunities for clinicians to extract greater insights and value from imaging data while better managing costs."
