IBM forms Watson Health medical imaging collaborative to improve doctors' work

IBM this week announced it has created a Watson Health medical imaging collaborative, a global initiative including more than fifteen leading health care entities such as academic medical centers, ambulatory radiology providers and imaging technology companies. The collaborative aims to bring cognitive imaging into daily practice to help doctors address cancers, diabetes, eye, brain and heart diseases. Members of the collaborative intend to put Watson to work to extract insights from previously'invisible' unstructured imaging data and combine that with a variety of data from other sources. In doing so, the efforts may help doctors make personalised care decisions relevant to a specific patient while building a body of knowledge to benefit the broader patient populations. This information may include data from electronic health records, radiology and pathology reports, lab results, doctors' progress notes, medical journals, clinical care guidelines and published studies.