Tag Archives: decision support

Care Delivery In a Services Oriented Facility

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by Susan Eustis

Mayo clinic, Cleveland Clinic, and Lahey Clinic provide a collaborative healthcare services delivery environment that is the preferred model going forward according to Craig R. Saunders, M.D., Chairman, Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Barnabas Health System in a private interview with WinterGreen Research this week.  He cited statistics relevant to demonstrating the fact that the US healthcare delivery system is the best in the world, unrivaled by any other care delivery system.  As we work to make the system more inclusive it is important not to destroy what is working well now according to Dr. Saunders.

Those models he cited, Cleveland Clinic, Lahey, and Mayo are where the physicians work collaboratively.  These facilities have been able to produce these best of the best in diagnostic and therapeutic care.   He talked about the necessity of balancing care delivery with resource availability and an adequate flow of income to keep facilities financially sound.

Care decision support represents a way to achieve more efficient and better care delivery.  No one physician or clinician can keep up with all the data coming at them with respect to best practice and medical breakthroughs, even in a particular specialty, so he embraced the idea of natural language based systems that assist and support physicians.  Dr. Saunders is a strong advocate for improving healthcare delivery in a manner that is led by the most thoughtful and intelligent practicing physicians, not leaving healthcare change to politicians.  In this he deserves to be listened to, and we urge him to work with Dr. John Livingstone of the Harvard Medical School who has been a similar advocate nationally for many years.

 

Taking Watson to the Bank

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Watson technology being explored by Citibank

By Jane Clabby

On Monday March 5, IBM and Citigroup announced that they have entered into a joint agreement to “explore possible uses for IBM Watson”. This partnership is significant as it represents a second industry segment where Watson’s technology can potentially improve service as well as deliver a more personalized customer experience. In healthcare, Watson could speed patient diagnosis and make suggestions for treatment options based on a patient’s individual history and symptoms. In financial services, Watson may be able to provide customers with financial suggestions based on their personal financial situation. These information -intensive industries are logical targets because of Watson’s ability to quickly process and analyze vast amounts of data.

According to IBM, the two companies first collaborated back in 1954 on something they called an “electronic brain”  which drastically reduced the time required to do a cost/benefit analysis. The current agreement will examine the use of Watson’s deep content analytics, natural language processing, decision support and evidence-based learning to facilitate customer interaction.

Citibank’s goal is to be the leading digital bank, providing integrated, consistent, secure service across all customer interaction points including internet, ATM, mobile, and in-person.  By using Watson technology, Citibank hopes to help financial decision makers look at opportunities and risks associated with possible actions for each individual client. By examining a customer’s needs and financial history, as well as real-time financial and economic data– personalized services and innovative offers can be presented to customers. This “customer interaction solution”  will improve customer service as well as provide a greater range of services for Citibank customers.  This, in turn, will make Citibank more attractive to existing and potential customers in an increasingly competitive industry.

 

Watson’s One-Year Jeopardy Anniversary – What Next?

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What does the future hold for IBM Watson?

By Jane Clabby

This week marks the one-year anniversary of Watson’s Jeopardy appearance. IBM’s Dave Ferrucci, Lead Researcher for Watson, had some interesting data to share as well as some thoughts about the Watson technology and the kinds of things that Watson could do in the future. In his Smarter Planet blog, Ferrucci shared the following “one year later” statistics.

  • 15 million viewers watched the Jeopardy rerun
  • 5 Congress members competed against Watson
  • 386 Universities are collaborating with IBM on Watson and Analytics
  • 34 million people potentially benefitting from Watson through WellPoint Health Plans

Ferrucci believes that we are entering a new era of computing where machines will be increasingly capable of learning.  He goes on to say that these intelligent machines will be capable of ingesting huge volumes of knowledge captured in human language and then, by interacting directly with humans, will be able to predict the impact of certain decisions.  By doing so, nations, cities or states (for example) would be able to determine the best course of action in a given situation or what policy decision would be best — without personal or political bias. Ferrucci outlines several steps which are required to get Watson to this point: 1) extend the information Watson understands from answering specific questions to problem-solving (2) expand Watson’s abilities to include rich conversations with humans 3) enhance Watson’s ability to explain results and (4) change how Watson learns so that he can continuously gather information in specific areas.

As part of the first anniversary milestone, IBM also poses a question via twitter, #WhatShouldWatsonDoNext? I checked it out and there are some interesting responses. Here are several examples (1) “participate in presidential debates”, (2)“identify content of images and photos” (3) “support interactive triggered oral response for apps, so translate an oral question in an application command” (4)  ” advise government on how to spend tax money in a fair way” (5) “cure cancer”. But my personal favorite has to be “make up its own mind”, and perhaps someday Watson will be able to do just that.

IBM Watson Brings Revolution for Healthcare

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Watson Brings Revolution for Healthcare

Clabby Analytics and Wintergreen Research see a major shift in healthcare delivery and are looking to document this shift.  We think it is interesting and seek to interview leaders in the healthcare delivery industry so as to document the the evolution of the shift in care delivery.  Please help drive traffic to our site.  Please contact us with your thoughts for the blog through susan@wintergreenresearch.com so you too can participate in documenting and understanding the revolution as it unfolds.

Clabby Analytics and Wintergreen Research believe that Watson and other healthcare decision support systems will revolutionize Health Care, leading to more accurate and quicker diagnoses, and more targeted treatment plans—-potentially saving billions of dollars in unnecessary tests, drugs and doctor and nurse time. Patients will be treated quicker and with more accuracy, leading to more positive outcomes.

Clabby Analytics and Wintergreen Research both agree that IBM’s Watson technology (a computer with a natural language interface that can analyze a very large database and instantaneously produce answers to queries) will fundamentally change the way medicine is practiced.  The way we see it, doctors continue to guide a patient through treatment aided by analysis from a Watson computer.

As this evolution in healthcare decision support systems becomes a revolution, these authors seek to document the transition and provide access to what people are saying, how they embrace the process.  IBM Watson is able to perform diagnoses.  Watson represents the penultimate cloud solution. For very little money, people are going to be able to get expert opinions on what a particular set of symptoms mean.

The doctors think they can control this evolution, but they cannot.  As soon as people see that the computer systems provide a level of accuracy that goes beyond the accuracy that any family physician can provide, the demand for access will overwhelm whatever systems are put in place early on.  Just as the PC brought computing to everyone, so also Watson brings more accurate diagnoses to everyone.

As ordinary physicians use the computer to change the way they gather clues and symptoms and quickly and accurately diagnose both ordinary and unusual patient conditions a revolution will unfold in front of our eyes.  People will turn to the cloud to supplement what their physicians are telling them.  IBM Watson and similar technology from a range of vendors technology will be able to analyze patient medical histories, current symptoms, prescription records, medical journals and previous cases to suggest possible diagnoses as well as assign probabilities. Using this information, doctors have another tool use in patient diagnosis.  Patients have another tool in evaluating physician accuracy.  Watson could be used to suggest possible treatment plans.