Kaiser Permanente is not using Watson, but is including it in its review process

Kaiser Permanente is a preeminent HMO, about which you can learn more here.

IBM is the creator and owner of the Watson technology that beat humanity’s best competitors on Jeopardy! in 2011 and has only been getting smarter and cheaper since.  It’s now available in the cloud. 

 

Epic provides Electronic Health Record (EHR) management systems for healthcare organizations.

The Mayo Clinic is, in the words of U.S. News and World Report:   “Ranked #1 in More Specialties than any other Hospital in the Nation.”

 On May 5, 2015, IBM announced that it was partnering with Epic and the Mayo Clinic to apply Watson’s cognitive computing capabilities to the data in the Mayo Clinic’s Epic EHR database.  You can read the details here.

Since Epic also provides EHR data management services for Kaiser, Etopia News asked that organization if it was going to use Watson also.  Here’s what Kaiser had to say:

“Kaiser Permanente regularly reviews new technologies, such as Watson, as part of our ongoing commitment to high quality patient care, service and safety. We are not using the technology at this time.”

A call has been placed with the Media Office at the Mayo Clinic in Arizona regarding details of the IBM Watson Health-Epic-Mayo Clinic data collaboration and whatever they have to say will appear here soon after they say it.