Playing House: How IBM's Watson is helping doctors diagnose the most rare and elusive illnesses

IBM's Watson system will help doctors diagnose rare illness faster by scanning through huge medical records to pull out relevant information. "We don't need more physicians, we need more IT power." It's a controversial statement for anyone with an interest in healthcare to make, let alone for a senior doctor heading up a centre for rare and undiagnosed diseases. But Dr Jürgen Schäfer, in charge of tackling the most mysterious conditions that arrive at the centre in the University Hospital in the German town of Marburg, is used to solving seemingly intractable problems. But now, rather than identifying the illnesses that have baffled numerous doctors before him, Schäfer - sometimes called the German'Dr House' -- has worked out how to crack another tricky medical problem: how to treat a spiralling number of patients, each with a lengthy and complex health history, without employing a whole new team of doctors.