7 ms·

IBM Adds Medical Images to Watson, Buying Merge Healthcare for $1B

101 points by denzil_correa 11y ago

inglor 11y ago
Just buying other companies is nice - but how about we start with APIs that don't 500-error every other request? I <3 all their APIs for Watson but it feels like AWS 3.5 years ago. Reliability counts.
- pridkett 11y ago
  Is this a general comment or is there a specific service that you're having problems with? There are IBMers around here (for example, me) that really want to create a great platform. If it's a specific service that's causing problems, let me know and we'll figure out what's going on.
  - DennisMoore 11y ago
    I'm not who you are replying to, but I am a developer at Merge who is excited to try out your toolkits! I think there are a ton of opportunities for medical image analysis in the PACS world. I really hope that IBM will challenge us with the task of integrating Watson-technology into the PACS workflow. We've got some really smart employees here and I am hopeful this represents a huge opportunity for us. (Secretly I can't help but think the smart business decision is to "black box" the image analysis as much as possible, but I can't help but being giddy about it even so!)
    - yo-code-sucks 11y ago
      So why not do it yourself? Watson is merely Apache UIMA. An open source application.
  - inglor 11y ago
    It is a general comment about 3-4 specific services we have been using. I'm actually coming to give feedback in IBM in two weeks. If you'd like I can gladly send you a copy of it if you tell me how.
annoyingdisb 11y ago
70s called. Expert systems are out of fashion. Anyway, if you ever used Watson on their Blue-thing you know how horrible the experience can be. Just pay someone to make some documentation or something and an API..
- j-pb 11y ago
  Ah yes, let's not do something we can do now, because 40 years ago it sucked due to technical limitations.
- tobylane 11y ago
  Are you saying it's limited by the lack of documentation that you need, or by the technology, or implementation?
__Joker 11y ago
This is interesting. IBM positioning personal intelligence/expert system as service. Anybody else working in this space ?
- threeseed 11y ago
  Microsoft Azure has been expanding its analytics capabilities into this space but more for general Fortune 500 enterprise needs rather than specific verticals. I can see the two giants on a collision course in the future.
RawInfoSec 11y ago
"I have detailed files on human anatomy." - T-800
mistermann 11y ago
Maybe I'm too cynical, but my first thought when reading this was, let's see how highly paid professionals react when technology is coming for their jobs. But of course, a few phone calls, the passing of some additional legislation if needed, and they will be completely protected from any financial ramifications. At least the world will still be a better place if this technology actually works.
- hiou 11y ago
  It's much more profitable to replace high wage labor than low skill labor so it makes sense that this segment of the workforce would be replaced sooner than later. I never considered the angle of the additional political power this group has which may end up stalling that process. Excellent point.
  - mistermann 11y ago
    Maybe not a great example: dentistry. While it is surely not "simple", I don't think it is nearly as complex as something like medicine, and it is fundamentally important basic need in everyone's life. But is also extremely expensive, and is often not covered by universal health even in countries where medicine is. So, from time to time you'll hear, typically in ethnic communities in western countries, of non-certified people practicing dentistry off the books. I have no way of knowing what skill level they tend to operate at, but I'd be surprised if it wasn't somewhat equivalent to where mainstream dentistry was at say 20 years ago - so certainly not the best, but far better than nothing. But when it leaks out this is happening, they are shut down immediately. As a comparison, auto mechanics is also quite complicated, but if you literally can't afford to have it dealer serviced, at least you have less-better but affordable alternatives. Not so with dentistry, because they have a powerful industry lobby that sees that any competition is formally illegal, and any freelancers have the full force of the law brought down to stop their practice. The argument for this I imagine would be "public safety", yet auto mechanics also has a public safety aspect, a much larger one I would argue, yet I can buy tools and work on my own car in my garage without breaking any laws. And so it will go as technology progresses, industries and professions with government connections will often be untouchable. The older I get, the more I see a similar pattern recurring everywhere (but in different forms), such as the "Why is rent so high and pay so low" article on the front page of HN today: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10024681 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10024681
jason_pomerleau 11y ago
a radiologist might examine thousands of patient images a day Shudder. As a young man, I used to inspect new cars for shipping damage. It was well known in the business that an inspector's effectiveness dropped off dramatically as the day progressed. Missed damage could cost our customer thousands of dollars, and yet even blatantly obvious stuff was missed from time to time. I once missed frame damage on a pickup truck that had been chained down a little too enthusiastically. The 45k truck was a write off. Our inspections numbered in the "hundreds per day". I can't even begin to imagine the mental haze at the end of thousands. I don't see Watson getting tired.
- copperx 11y ago
  I don't think radiologists can examine and report on thousands of images. Have you seen a radiology report? It's a detailed 1-2 page writeup of findings. I am sure they have software that may autocomplete some stuff, or they dictate the findings to someone else. Still, the math doesn't check out.
  - naveen99 11y ago
    Radiologist here. A chest abdomen pelvis cat scan I routinely read as about 500 axial images at 2.5 mm slices. Then there is a comparison or two or more. Then there are different phases of contrast for the liver, kidneys. Then there are coronal and Sagittal reconstructions. I easily look at an average of 2000 images per patient. Voice recognition software autocomplete is about as good as your phone's autocorrect...
- e40 11y ago
  Yes, it's called decision fatigue and it's a real thing. Don't make important decisions in your life at the end of a long day where you've already made many, many decisions.
- orting 11y ago
  Stating it as "thousands of patient images a day" is misleading. It would be the same as saying you inspected "thousands of parts each day". As the radiologist further down notes, CT scans contains many slices. While computers don't get tired, they also have a really hard time solving stuff like annotation tasks automatically. One thing is getting a good enough general performance, another is to never make critical errors. I see a huge potential for ML approaches in health care, but primarily as an aid for the health care professionals and not as a full replacement.
AlphaWeaver 11y ago
I recently had the privilege of meeting one of the engineers on the Watson project. From what he has shared, I believe that it will be challenging to replace radiologists with this technology. Sure, Watson can be trained to identify medical imagery, but that would be the only thing its training model would be capable of. I believe human radiologists will still be superior.
- gdubs 11y ago
  Huh. I don't have a source handy, but I recall hearing about field trials that showed Watson used as a diagnostic assistant was able to identify some hard to identify medical problems, where Watson's human counterparts were unable.
blueyes 11y ago
What does it mean to "bring" medical images to Watson? Does Watson actually do anything, or is it a name for a bunch of services that IBM relies on other companies to construct?

101 points by denzil_correa 11y ago

Just buying other companies is nice - but how about we start with APIs that don't 500-error every other request? I <3 all their APIs for Watson but it feels like AWS 3.5 years ago. Reliability counts.

pridkett 11y ago
Is this a general comment or is there a specific service that you're having problems with? There are IBMers around here (for example, me) that really want to create a great platform. If it's a specific service that's causing problems, let me know and we'll figure out what's going on.
- DennisMoore 11y ago
  I'm not who you are replying to, but I am a developer at Merge who is excited to try out your toolkits! I think there are a ton of opportunities for medical image analysis in the PACS world. I really hope that IBM will challenge us with the task of integrating Watson-technology into the PACS workflow. We've got some really smart employees here and I am hopeful this represents a huge opportunity for us. (Secretly I can't help but think the smart business decision is to "black box" the image analysis as much as possible, but I can't help but being giddy about it even so!)
  - yo-code-sucks 11y ago
    So why not do it yourself? Watson is merely Apache UIMA. An open source application.
- inglor 11y ago
  It is a general comment about 3-4 specific services we have been using. I'm actually coming to give feedback in IBM in two weeks. If you'd like I can gladly send you a copy of it if you tell me how.

annoyingdisb 11y ago

70s called. Expert systems are out of fashion. Anyway, if you ever used Watson on their Blue-thing you know how horrible the experience can be. Just pay someone to make some documentation or something and an API..

j-pb 11y ago
Ah yes, let's not do something we can do now, because 40 years ago it sucked due to technical limitations.
tobylane 11y ago
Are you saying it's limited by the lack of documentation that you need, or by the technology, or implementation?

__Joker 11y ago

This is interesting. IBM positioning personal intelligence/expert system as service. Anybody else working in this space ?

threeseed 11y ago
Microsoft Azure has been expanding its analytics capabilities into this space but more for general Fortune 500 enterprise needs rather than specific verticals. I can see the two giants on a collision course in the future.

RawInfoSec 11y ago

"I have detailed files on human anatomy." - T-800

mistermann 11y ago

Maybe I'm too cynical, but my first thought when reading this was, let's see how highly paid professionals react when technology is coming for their jobs. But of course, a few phone calls, the passing of some additional legislation if needed, and they will be completely protected from any financial ramifications. At least the world will still be a better place if this technology actually works.

hiou 11y ago
It's much more profitable to replace high wage labor than low skill labor so it makes sense that this segment of the workforce would be replaced sooner than later. I never considered the angle of the additional political power this group has which may end up stalling that process. Excellent point.
- mistermann 11y ago
  Maybe not a great example: dentistry. While it is surely not "simple", I don't think it is nearly as complex as something like medicine, and it is fundamentally important basic need in everyone's life. But is also extremely expensive, and is often not covered by universal health even in countries where medicine is. So, from time to time you'll hear, typically in ethnic communities in western countries, of non-certified people practicing dentistry off the books. I have no way of knowing what skill level they tend to operate at, but I'd be surprised if it wasn't somewhat equivalent to where mainstream dentistry was at say 20 years ago - so certainly not the best, but far better than nothing. But when it leaks out this is happening, they are shut down immediately. As a comparison, auto mechanics is also quite complicated, but if you literally can't afford to have it dealer serviced, at least you have less-better but affordable alternatives. Not so with dentistry, because they have a powerful industry lobby that sees that any competition is formally illegal, and any freelancers have the full force of the law brought down to stop their practice. The argument for this I imagine would be "public safety", yet auto mechanics also has a public safety aspect, a much larger one I would argue, yet I can buy tools and work on my own car in my garage without breaking any laws. And so it will go as technology progresses, industries and professions with government connections will often be untouchable. The older I get, the more I see a similar pattern recurring everywhere (but in different forms), such as the "Why is rent so high and pay so low" article on the front page of HN today: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10024681 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10024681

jason_pomerleau 11y ago

a radiologist might examine thousands of patient images a day Shudder. As a young man, I used to inspect new cars for shipping damage. It was well known in the business that an inspector's effectiveness dropped off dramatically as the day progressed. Missed damage could cost our customer thousands of dollars, and yet even blatantly obvious stuff was missed from time to time. I once missed frame damage on a pickup truck that had been chained down a little too enthusiastically. The 45k truck was a write off. Our inspections numbered in the "hundreds per day". I can't even begin to imagine the mental haze at the end of thousands. I don't see Watson getting tired.

copperx 11y ago
I don't think radiologists can examine and report on thousands of images. Have you seen a radiology report? It's a detailed 1-2 page writeup of findings. I am sure they have software that may autocomplete some stuff, or they dictate the findings to someone else. Still, the math doesn't check out.
- naveen99 11y ago
  Radiologist here. A chest abdomen pelvis cat scan I routinely read as about 500 axial images at 2.5 mm slices. Then there is a comparison or two or more. Then there are different phases of contrast for the liver, kidneys. Then there are coronal and Sagittal reconstructions. I easily look at an average of 2000 images per patient. Voice recognition software autocomplete is about as good as your phone's autocorrect...
e40 11y ago
Yes, it's called decision fatigue and it's a real thing. Don't make important decisions in your life at the end of a long day where you've already made many, many decisions.
orting 11y ago
Stating it as "thousands of patient images a day" is misleading. It would be the same as saying you inspected "thousands of parts each day". As the radiologist further down notes, CT scans contains many slices. While computers don't get tired, they also have a really hard time solving stuff like annotation tasks automatically. One thing is getting a good enough general performance, another is to never make critical errors. I see a huge potential for ML approaches in health care, but primarily as an aid for the health care professionals and not as a full replacement.

AlphaWeaver 11y ago

I recently had the privilege of meeting one of the engineers on the Watson project. From what he has shared, I believe that it will be challenging to replace radiologists with this technology. Sure, Watson can be trained to identify medical imagery, but that would be the only thing its training model would be capable of. I believe human radiologists will still be superior.

gdubs 11y ago
Huh. I don't have a source handy, but I recall hearing about field trials that showed Watson used as a diagnostic assistant was able to identify some hard to identify medical problems, where Watson's human counterparts were unable.

blueyes 11y ago

What does it mean to "bring" medical images to Watson? Does Watson actually do anything, or is it a name for a bunch of services that IBM relies on other companies to construct?