IBM and Innovative Health Care systems

Clinics from all around the world are now implementing various Information Systems to process and organize patient data.  With the increasing amount of logs and documents it is now essential to have an Information System capable of structuring all the data and developing hypothesis based on analyzed data.  Industries also understand the rising demand for efficient and effective Healthcare Information Systems.  IBM has developed a world class technology capable of processing information just as a human would.

 “Watson is a cognitive technology that processes information more like a human than a computer—by understanding natural language, generating hypotheses based on evidence, and learning as it goes”  But how does Watson improve Healthcare information systems?  Here’s an example.  A physician can describe symptoms of a patient which would be information put into the system.  The next step involves mining through previous data of the patient and finding relevant information such as family history, medications, and similar conditions.  By accessing this data Watson can then form a hypothesis on how to treat the patient.  This task used to be the sole responsibility of physicians.  Just try to imagine the amount of research physicians had to do on their patients before developing a correct method of treatment!

This innovative technology may provide benefits for healthcare systems but can also come with a few problems.  1) Integrating a new system can be very complicated and time consuming 2) There are multiple security concerns and constant risk due to hackers, identity theft, unauthorized access to data, etc. 3) The govt. tries to mandate Health Information Technology which in turn actually hinders the success of Health Information Technology.  Hire-ups like government officials may devise a plan which is not in the interest of physicians who are the ones implementing it.

Innovation of healthcare information systems has drastically improved the way physicians interact with patients and derive solutions for treatment.  From a patient perspective, do you recognize any innovative health technologies that help improve your visits to the doctor?  Let us know!