It beat 'jeopardy!' Can it beat cancer?

• Author: Tobler, Laura
• Position: TRENDS & TRANSITIONS - Watson supercomputer

Watson, the talking computer that captivated the world and won $1 million on the TV game show "Jeopardy!" a couple of years ago, is making history again. This time, it's in the field of medicine.

Watson is helping physicians at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City diagnose and treat diseases, starting with lung cancer. Over the past year, Watson--developed by IBM and named for company founder Thomas J. Watson--has been programmed with more than 600,000 samples of medical evidence and 2 million pages of oncology research from 42 medical journals and clinical trials, according to IBM. Watson will use the data, representing decades of cancer treatment history, to help determine the best treatment option for each patient.

States no doubt will be monitoring Watson's ability to increase efficiency in the healthcare industry. Medicaid was states' biggest single expense in fiscal year 2010, consuming more than 22 percent of state budgets. Public hospitals, prison health care and employee health insurance are also costing states more. This new technology is beyond an evolutionary step--it is revolutionary, says Dr. Larry Norton, medical director of Memorial Sloan-Kettering. Watson will...