IBM and Nuance to Apply IBM’s “Watson” Technology to Healthcare

[TECH NEWS]

IBM and Nuance Communications, Inc. on Feb. 17 announced a research agreement to explore, develop and commercialize the Watson computing system’s advanced analytics capabilities [the recent star of “Jeopardy”] in the healthcare industry. The research and technology initiative will combine IBM’s Deep Question Answering (QA), Natural Language Processing, and Machine Learning capabilities with Nuance’s speech recognition and Clinical Language Understanding (CLU) solutions for the diagnosis and treatment of patients that provide hospitals, physicians and payers access to critical and timely information. The two companies expect the first commercial offerings from the collaboration to be available in 18-24 months. Additionally, Columbia University Medical Center and the University of Maryland School of Medicine are contributing their medical expertise and research to the collaborative effort. For example, physicians at Columbia University are helping identify critical issues in the practice of medicine where the Watson technology may be able to contribute, and physicians at the University of Maryland are working to identify the best way that a technology like Watson could interact with medical practitioners to provide the maximum assistance.

2/17/11, IBM