IBM to become game changer in healthcare

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IBM’s Watson supercomputer trounced the competition on “Jeopardy!” Now a leading health insurer wants to see if it can beat doctors at their game. WellPoint Inc., one of the nation’s largest health insurers, has tapped Watson to help diagnose medical ailments and authorize treatments for its 34.2 million members. Wellpoint operates Blue Cross Blue Shield plans in 14 states, including New York and California.

“It’s really a game-changer in health care,” said Lori Beer, an executive vice president for WellPoint. “This very much fits into the sweet spot of what we envisioned for the applications of Watson,” said Manoj Saxena, general manager of an IBM division that’s looking at marketing the supercomputer.

Watson will comb through data from patients’ electronic records, the insurance company’s history of medicines and treatments, and its built-in massive library of medical journals and textbooks, and then recommends a specific treatment. IBM says the computer processes all the data within seconds.

Ref and Read more: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504763_162-20105069-10391704.html

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