IBM puts Watson to work on your health

IBM's new baby, Watson, is rapidly growing up and headed for a career in health care.

That was predicted in the early days when Watson was playing kid games, beating up Jeopardy! contestants.

Now, it's on. IBM Corp. Monday made a suite of announcements of its new Watson Health unit and said it is partnering with or buying several companies.

It fulfilled a prophecy Big Blue made back in early 2011 when it ballyhooed the early version of Watson, the question-answering computer system that edged human contestants from the TV game show.

"The implications of this technology in the coming years are going to be phenomenal," said Ross Mauri, who was then IBM vice president for enterprise process transformation, speaking at a Marist College gathering in 2011, convened by its School of Computer Science and Mathematics. Future uses on that list ranged from government to travel to health. But commercialization takes time.

Now, there's Watson Health. IBM describes it as a way "to dramatically advance the quality and effectiveness of personal health care."

The Watson system has a massive data base and software that's apt at connecting disparate pieces of data to produce useful insights, a feature called cognitive computing. With more and more information being generated by a person's health-care activities, it's more challenging to pull it all together to enable providers, and individuals themselves, to make decisions.

"All this data can be overwhelming for providers and patients alike, but it also presents an unprecedented opportunity to transform the ways in which we manage our health," said John E. Kelly III, IBM senior vice president, solutions portfolio and research, in the announcement.

"We need better ways to tap into and analyze all of this information in real-time to benefit patients and to improve wellness globally," Kelly said.

Individuals may encounter the fruits of this work in the form of applications, or apps, developed by companies that connect with consumers. IBM mentioned Welltok, Modernizing Medicine, Pathway Genomics and GenieMD, which are already using Watson.

Monday's announcement revealed that IBM is working with Apple to develop apps for iOS using Apple's ResearchKit and HealthKit to give medical researchers secure but readily available data storage and to let software developers create new apps that could, for example, help people monitor their health and treatment plans through a smartphone.

IBM also announced that it is partnering with Johnson & Johnson and Medtronic to optimize medical devices for data collection, analysis and feedback.

It has purchased acquired Explorys, a health-care intelligence cloud company, and has a deal to buy Phytel, a provider of integrated population health-management software.

Much of the Watson development was done in IBM's Westchester County labs. A Watson center has been established in New York City and one is being set up in Boston.

Craig Wolf: 845-437-4815; cwolf@poughkeepsiejournal.com; Twitter: @craigwolfPJ