HUG to become first university hospital using IBM's AI tool to personalise cancer treatment

IBM Watson Health announced yesterday at the Intelligent Health 2019 summit on AI in Basel that it has signed a partnership with the university hospital in Geneva (Hôpitaux universitaires de Genève, HUG) to implement and use IBM's Watson for Genomics, making it the first university hospital in Switzerland and Europe to use the tool. IBM Watson for Genomics will empower oncologists in Geneva to come up with better-informed diagnoses faster. Deploying information extracted from peer-reviewed articles and validated by experts, the solution generates a report for clinicians that matches genetic alterations in a patient's tumour with the most relevant therapies and clinical trials. In 1950, it took about 50 years for it to double, and there are estimates reckoning that by 2020 this will have come down to three months. This makes it impossible for clinicians to stay on top of current research.