
IBM, Microsoft launch a cloud computing platform for healthcare professionals
- August 16, 2021
The world’s biggest computer makers announced Wednesday that they would launch a new cloud computing service that would allow people to run their own healthcare operations and manage data on their own devices.
The IBM Watson service is called the Metropolis.
It was unveiled at the World Health Organization’s World Health Assembly in Geneva, Switzerland, along with the launch of a new type of wearable device called the wearable IBM Health Sensor.
Watson is IBM’s answer to Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing offering.
Watson uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to do some of the tasks of medical practitioners, such as analyzing blood pressure and heart rates.
But unlike Azure, which is designed for small, private companies to run, Metropolis is designed to be used by the health care industry.
It will enable doctors to access the data of patients and their care teams and share it with the health system, according to the announcement.
“We have to find a way to provide a service that’s as accessible and flexible as the medical devices we care for,” said Rob Sacks, chief executive officer of IBM.
“The Metropolis will be the answer to our cloud challenge,” he said.
The company has been working on the Watson product since its beta test in May.
IBM said it would begin shipping Watson to patients and care providers on Monday.
The company said it planned to provide more details about the Metonia when it launched the service in January.
Sacks said Watson is the first machine learning and machine intelligence service for health care professionals that is built for a variety of uses.
“This is not a tool that is focused on just one purpose, but will have many,” he added.
Sack said the service will be used to help hospitals and health care providers make decisions about how to manage patients’ health, and it will help them plan care.IBM Watson will work with doctors and other health care workers to analyze data to create an assessment of the patient, such a patient’s age, gender and health conditions.
The service will allow a doctor to provide personalized recommendations to a patient.
The analysis will be done by IBM’s Watson cloud computing software that will allow doctors to perform calculations and identify health problems.
“It’s not just about the machine learning,” said David Eller, chief scientist at IBM Watson.
“This is an analysis tool that allows a doctor or nurse to understand what the patient is doing.”
The Metonia will allow health care organizations to make decisions, based on what they already know, on how to best care for patients, Sacks said.IBP Watson will be able to perform tasks such as predicting when and how a patient is going to be sick, and to alert the doctor if a patient has had an infection, he said, adding that IBM is already working with the healthcare industry to develop technology that can be used with Watson.
The Metonian is not just for doctors, Sacking said.
It is also used by medical and nursing staff.
“For many years, we have relied on doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers to make critical decisions about what is best for their patients,” Sacks added.
“The Metronias ability to help with these decisions will enable us to make more informed decisions for our patients, and help us provide better care.”
The new service will start as a beta, Sockets said.