Manipal Hospitals to harness IBM Watson for cancer care

03rd December 2015
Manipal  Hospitals to harness  IBM Watson for  cancer care
Leanne LeBlanc, IBM Watson project manager, views analytics of healthcare data at Watson headquarters in New York City. IBM says each person generates one million gigabytes of health-related data across his or her lifetime, the equivalent of more than 300 million books.Inset from left: Robert Merkel, Partner &VP, Watson Health Global Engagement Leader; Vanitha Narayanan, MD,IBM India; Dr. Ajay Bakshi, MD & CEO, Manipal Hospitals & Dr. H Sudarshan Ballal, Chairman, Manipal Hospitals at the event to announce the deployment of Watson at Manipal Hospitals, December 2 2015

Bangalore,  December 3 2015 Manipal Hospitals’ corporate and teaching facilities will adopt  IBM's Watson for Oncology, a cognitive computing platform trained by Memorial Sloan-Kettering that analyzes data to identify evidence-based treatment options, helping oncologists to provide cancer patients with individualized healthcare.
More than 200,000 individuals receive care for cancer at Manipal facilities each year. This will be the first deployment of Watson in India and the first engagement of its kind as the country advances efforts to transform healthcare. 
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  IBM Watson is a technology platform that uses natural language
processing and machine learning to reveal insights from large amounts
of unstructured data
. With the help of Watson, organizations are harnessing
the power of cognitive computing to transform industries, help professionals do
their jobs better, and solve important challenges. To advance Watson, IBM has
two dedicated business units: Watson, established for the development of
cloud-delivered cognitive computing technologies that represent the
commercialization of "artificial intelligence" or "AI" across a variety of industries,
and Watson Health, dedicated to improving the ability of doctors, researchers
and insurers and other related health organizations to surface new insights from
data to and deliver personalized healthcare.
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Watson represents a fundamental shift in the paradigm of computing – moving from programmable systems which have been the mainstay for the last several decades to learning systems that keep getting smarter as they process more knowledge. Based on cutting-edge research led by IBM computer scientists, Watson has the ability to read and understand natural language. Watson for Oncology was developed by IBM in concert with Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK), one of the world’s leading cancer centers. To date, Watson for Oncology has ingested nearly 15 million pages of medical content, including more than 200 medical textbooks and 300 medical journals.
This year alone, nearly 44,000 oncology research papers have been published in medical journals around the world. This amounts to nearly 122 new papers published every day, outpacing the ability of humans to keep up with the proliferation of medical knowledge. Using natural language, clinicians using Watson for Oncology will be able to explore treatment options, analyze information provided, and gather evidence specific to a patients’ individual health needs. Watson’s machine learning capability means it is continuously learning about oncology over time, and doctors have access to peer reviewed studies, clinical guidelines, and expert perspectives.
  “We are at an inflection point in India regarding cancer care, driven by the increasing number of cancer patients in India, fewer oncologists to treat them and the broad geographic footprint of our region. These challenges are amplified by rapid advances in personalized medicine, and an ever-growing amount and diversity of clinical evidence. All these factors compelled us to consider how a technology-based solution could help deliver at scale world class cancer care to our patients,” said Dr. Ajay Bakshi, Managing Director & CEO of Manipal Hospitals. “With IBM’s Watson for Oncology, we can combine our clinicians’ expertise across various types of cancers with a cognitive computing solution informed by expert training from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. We believe the result will be to raise the level of care throughout the region.”
“This engagement represents a major step in the transformation of healthcare in India.  With IBM Watson we are bringing cognitive computing to the healthcare ecosystem to help deliver greater value to patients in India,” said Vanitha Narayanan, Managing Director, IBM India.
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“Watson for Oncology will assist Manipal’s physicians in their goal to provide every
cancer patient the most advanced, efficacious and cost effective treatment if they
are seen by a Manipal oncologist anywhere in the Manipal network.”

Dr Ajay Bakshi, MD Manipal Hospitals.
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For a few days, we have a video on Watson and Healthcare in our TechVideo spot on the home page