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Speculate on the efficacy of web-based computers in health care. Cite one new article.
One of the most famous -- and to some, one of the most frightening -- developments in the world of computers was the creation of IBM's 'Watson,' a computer so brilliant it was even able to vanquish the most brilliant minds on television's Jeopardy trivia game show. However, Watson's capabilities have a potential to be used for the good of humanity far beyond the realm of mere entertainment. According to Lucas Mearian of ComputerWorld in his 2011 article entitled "IBM's Watson supercomputer to diagnose patients," IBM and WellPoint (Blue Cross, Blue Shield's largest health plan) "have agreed to develop Watson-based applications that can improve patient care through the use of evidence-based medicine, which is designed to standardize patient treatments by identifying proven best practices" (Mearian 2011). Watson is to be used as an extension of the standard evidence-based practice that is currently deployed in the treatment and diagnosis of humans.
Evidence-based practice uses current research findings to dispense care to patients. A good example of this might be the prescribing of aspirin to all heart attack patients, based on the research that indicates such medication can help prevent an additional attack (Mearian 2011). Watson, because of its ability to sift through mountains of data in response to a question, is able to access far more research studies and other sources of information than a single clinician, and to provide information on a much wider range of illnesses. Watson "can assist healthcare professionals in culling through gigabytes or terabytes of patient healthcare information to determine how to best treat specific illnesses" (Mearian 2011). And because Watson lives in the virtual world, healthcare providers of all different persuasions, from all over the nation can use Watson's capabilities to give them advice. Just like Watson was able to search his databases to discover answers to Jeopardy questions, he can do the same for physicians who provide him with...
"Watson's analytics technology, used with Nuance's voice and clinical language understanding software, could help a physician consider all related texts, reference materials, prior cases, and latest knowledge in journals and medical literature when treating an illness" (Mearian 2011).
However, it should be noted that evidence-based medicine does have its critics. Some feel that it provides a kind of 'cookie cutter' approach to medicine, and does not allow providers to fully use the intuition that they have honed over years of practice. Every patient is different, and prescribing medication and treatment must be done in a contextual fashion. However, standard evidence-based medicine does not allow for a great deal of differentiation. When a physician uses Watson, he or she will "input certain criteria to get back the best options for diagnoses and treatment. The results will come after Watson sifts through online clinical research and best practices, patient information in electronic health records (EHR), as well as historical insurance claim information related to specific patients" (Mearian 2011). Use of cloud technology is essential because "caregivers use platforms from a variety of vendors, so Watson's interface will need to adapt to different workflows" (Mearian 2011).
Theoretically, Watson will have some sort of humanizing capacity to review not simply symptoms, physician findings, and diagnoses, but also be able to scan patient interviews with clues that could improve treatment. However, the extent to which Watson can understand the patient's emotional state from this information seems questionable. Critics will no doubt see diagnosing patients through computers as simply taking the worst aspects of evidence-based medicine to a new low. Furthermore, given that the information is derived from insurance claim information, there may be concerns about its accuracy and the tendency to standardize medical care solely based upon treatment recommendations from insurance providers. However, one potential 'plus' is the ability to amass data over time from multiple sources, which…
