3 ms·

I actually love the idea of Watson being used for healthcare... Sadly I think it is being used wrong... IBM is focusing on using Watson to cure very specific

I actually love the idea of Watson being used for healthcare... Sadly I think it is being used wrong... IBM is focusing on using Watson to cure very specific diseases, like certain types of cancer. I think a far better use for Watson would be to do initial diagnosis, for example my life got massively delayed because I got hypothyroidism as teenager, but only using internet data I could self-diagnose and self-treat (because doctors are still unwilling to help, not trusting data, and before someone come berate me for self-treatment, it is working...) as adult I could finally get my life 'started' (hypothyroidism affect physical and mental development, and slows down metabolism and the brain) During my quest I met many, many, many people on internet, that had self-diagnosed with something using the internet as a tool. All of us would have been diagnosed properly if Watson was being used on the doctors office, using its data crunching capabilities and symptoms as input to find out what problem we had. (in my case: I have Hashimoto's disease)

vslira 9y ago
Why would professionals support tech that makes their labor less scarce? Unfortunately this change won't come from doctors
- pwthornton 9y ago
  Doctors might fear it, but healthcare administrators would certainly love for a tool to help make diagnosis faster, more accurate and less expensive.
  - sgt101 9y ago
    If it worked in that way, which it currently doesn't (see comments about question answering systems and Jeopardy) in terms of the state of the art, we're... maybe 30 years off that, like as in we're 30 years off fusion. Think about the human condition, think about human biology. Be clear- these are systems beyond current science... and doctors deal with them every day!
    - roywiggins 9y ago
      The current push seems to be in radiology. An AI that never sleeps and can read images and give you a good estimate of whether something is a tumor? It probably wouldn't replace humans entirely but it could be the first place that AI really gets into the process of diagnosis.
  - johngarrison 9y ago
    As a physician, I say most doctors would enthusiastically welcome it. With today's constant threat of litigation, practically all doctors are getting second opinions on every diagnosis anyway to help defend their actions in case something goes wrong. If they can say "Watson agreed with my diagnosis" instead of "Dr. Jones agreed with my diagnosis", work gets done quicker. Waiting for second opinions is hugely annoying and a big time waster in a doctor's day.
- johngarrison 9y ago
  Because, in theory, if anything goes wrong during the course of a patient's care the doctor can just say "Watson agreed with me" and the chance of litigation drops dramatically.
- Bucephalus355 9y ago
  There was a thread a while ago on HN where someone mentioned they design EMR and EHR systems and for a particular module they design they couldn't put in autofilled dates because the nurses union saw it as a slippery slope to them being out of a job. Considering good spectrometers embedded in the cameras of smart phones are only a few years away, perhaps full blood panels coming just from the camera of your iPhone, can't say they are wrong.
- gaius 9y ago
  Why would professionals support tech that makes their labor less scarce? That's an odd question. People in tech are always saying "teach everyone to code!!". There's your why...
rspeer 9y ago
> All of us would have been diagnosed properly if Watson was being used on the doctors office, using its data crunching capabilities and symptoms as input to find out what problem we had. No, unfortunately, I don't think there's any basis to believe that you could have been diagnosed properly by "Watson". Maybe by better data management in medicine. Not by an IBM brand name. From the article: > “Why confuse people and make them think it’s going to find something that a physician couldn’t possibly find?... Then you’ve moved into what strikes me as unethical territory when you’re potentially giving hope to people who should never have placed hope in that kind of a system because it’s not a magical box that does that stuff.”

vslira 9y ago

Why would professionals support tech that makes their labor less scarce? Unfortunately this change won't come from doctors

pwthornton 9y ago
Doctors might fear it, but healthcare administrators would certainly love for a tool to help make diagnosis faster, more accurate and less expensive.
- sgt101 9y ago
  If it worked in that way, which it currently doesn't (see comments about question answering systems and Jeopardy) in terms of the state of the art, we're... maybe 30 years off that, like as in we're 30 years off fusion. Think about the human condition, think about human biology. Be clear- these are systems beyond current science... and doctors deal with them every day!
  - roywiggins 9y ago
    The current push seems to be in radiology. An AI that never sleeps and can read images and give you a good estimate of whether something is a tumor? It probably wouldn't replace humans entirely but it could be the first place that AI really gets into the process of diagnosis.
- johngarrison 9y ago
  As a physician, I say most doctors would enthusiastically welcome it. With today's constant threat of litigation, practically all doctors are getting second opinions on every diagnosis anyway to help defend their actions in case something goes wrong. If they can say "Watson agreed with my diagnosis" instead of "Dr. Jones agreed with my diagnosis", work gets done quicker. Waiting for second opinions is hugely annoying and a big time waster in a doctor's day.
johngarrison 9y ago
Because, in theory, if anything goes wrong during the course of a patient's care the doctor can just say "Watson agreed with me" and the chance of litigation drops dramatically.
Bucephalus355 9y ago
There was a thread a while ago on HN where someone mentioned they design EMR and EHR systems and for a particular module they design they couldn't put in autofilled dates because the nurses union saw it as a slippery slope to them being out of a job. Considering good spectrometers embedded in the cameras of smart phones are only a few years away, perhaps full blood panels coming just from the camera of your iPhone, can't say they are wrong.
gaius 9y ago
Why would professionals support tech that makes their labor less scarce? That's an odd question. People in tech are always saying "teach everyone to code!!". There's your why...

rspeer 9y ago

> All of us would have been diagnosed properly if Watson was being used on the doctors office, using its data crunching capabilities and symptoms as input to find out what problem we had. No, unfortunately, I don't think there's any basis to believe that you could have been diagnosed properly by "Watson". Maybe by better data management in medicine. Not by an IBM brand name. From the article: > “Why confuse people and make them think it’s going to find something that a physician couldn’t possibly find?... Then you’ve moved into what strikes me as unethical territory when you’re potentially giving hope to people who should never have placed hope in that kind of a system because it’s not a magical box that does that stuff.”