Watson—the IBM supercomputer that last year mounted an impressive performance against two humans on the game show “Jeopardy”—will be beefing up its healthcare expertise with the help of the Cleveland Clinic.
The hope is to pump as much of the Clinic’s medical expertise into Watson and ultimately turn the supercomputer into a useful tool for healthcare providers. The idea is that a single person can’t stay on top of all the latest medical research, but Watson’s prowess in unlocking answers buried in huge volumes of information could prove helpful in the healthcare space.
“You’d like to bring all that knowledge to bear on the clinical problem and the patient sitting in front of you,” said Dr. James Stoller, chair of the Clinic’s education institute. “Watson at its best — if this is successful — would help us at the bedside but not be a good stand in.”
Watson also could be considered the latest student enrolled in the Clinic’s Lerner College of Medicine. Medical students will interact with Watson on hypothetical medical cases as part of a problem-based learning curriculum. The supercomputer will assist students by helping them navigate the latest research and suggest various hypotheses that support potential diagnoses and treatment options.
“We’re looking to the Cleveland Clinic to provide expertise and guidance on what kind of content would be appropriate to improve Watson’s core capability in understanding the language and knowledge used in medicine,” said Eric Brown, an IBM researcher and manager of the IBM TJ Watson Research Center.
Students as well as Watson will benefit from the interaction. Over time, Watson will get to be more adept at understanding medical language and about how to piece together evidence to support a diagnosis.
Researchers from IBM and the Clinic will discuss the role of Watson in the healthcare field at 4 p.m. today during the Cleveland Clinic Medical Innovation Summit, which runs through tomorrow at the InterContinental Hotel on the Clinic’s main campus. Watson made an appearance at last year’s summit and handily beat teams of Clinic cardiologists in a game modeled after “Jeopardy.”