The Future of Artificial Intelligence and Healthcare IT

A CIO article, "Artificial Intelligence: Humankind's Best Chance for a Healthier Future," makes a really good point about the past and future of medicine. Many of the greatest advances in medicine depended upon observation and almost accidental discoveries. Really smart people had to be in the right place at the right time. For example, Pasteur noticed that people who contracted cowpox seemed immune to smallpox; Fleming noticed that mold killed bacteria in an unwashed dish. These kinds of brilliant minds managed to make connections that helped cure and prevent diseases because they noticed what other people didn't notice.