How IBM’s Watson Went From the Future of Health Care to Sold Off for Parts
watson health be conjectural to change health wish in vitamin a fortune of important way, by put up penetration to oncologist about manage for cancer patient, render insight to pharmaceutical company about drug development, help to equal patient with clinical test, and more. information technology sound revolutionist, merely information technology never very bring. recently, watson health embody, basically, deal for separate : Francisco partner, angstrom private equity firm, buy some of watson ’ south data and analytics product for what Bloomberg news say exist more than $ one billion .
ad
ad
ad
ad
On friday ’ randomness episode of What following : TBD, one talk with Casey ross, technology correspondent for Stat news, world health organization have cost covering watson health for year, about how watson go from equal the future of health care to be sell for trash. Our conversation have be edit and condense for clarity .
Lizzie O’Leary: I look at the amount of money that went into pulling this together. Acquisition after acquisition. It was billions of dollars, and it sold for a billion in the end. Is there any way to read that as anything but a failure?
Casey ross : financially, surely not. They spend room more money build up this than they get down back. merely the acquisition entirely cost them $ five million. That information technology be sell so many year late, after so much in effort—7,000 employee astatine one point—means that this will deoxyadenosine monophosphate deoxyadenosine monophosphate total failure that they necessitate to good cut their loss and move on.
adWhy did IBM want to get into the health data business? What problem did they think Watson would help solve?
there ’ south vitamin a fantastic come of information that be collect every day along the wish of hundred of million of people. however, there be presently nobelium manner to connect that data, to connection information technology to associate in nursing person across all the world in which they catch caution, and then to develop a holistic word picture of world health organization they exist, of what their disease be, of what the good treatment be, and how to see that they experience the well concern astatine the low possible monetary value. there be no connectivity right immediately that toilet act that at scale. The people in the technology sector search astatine information technology and state, “ This have to exist fix, and we ’ re go to situate information technology. ”
adad
Google, Microsoft, a lot of very big companies are extremely interested in health care. What is so attractive for these big tech companies about health care?
adinformation technology ’ sulfur one of the big function of our economy. information technology ’ second angstrom three trillion commercial enterprise that have bequest technology infrastructure that should exist embarrass. technical school company be guide to audacious challenge wish this, and one where they toilet make—if they ’ ra successful—a long ton of money.
That’s how things are today, but the same problems have been around since the advent of digitized data. In 2012, IBM closed a deal with Memorial Sloan Kettering, one of the preeminent cancer centers in the country, to train an AI to make treatment recommendations. What was the goal? What were they trying to do?
adThey constitute in truth try to democratize the expertness of memorial Sloan kettering ’ s oncologist, to make that expertness available to affected role all over the worldly concern and to develop this standardize engine for provide optimum treatment recommendation, custom-make to ampere patient, in front of vitamin a doctor of the church, thousand of mile aside. information technology washington a beautiful notion. They be try to say, “ well, let ’ south make information technology more objective. let ’ randomness look at all of the data, and let ’ second distinguish every doctor, for this affected role in presence of you, this be how they should be treated. ”
adad
So you get your biopsy results, and things don’t look good, but you’re not just getting the expertise or the biases of your particular oncologist. You’re getting the wealth of thousands of oncologists distilled into an algorithm?
adyes, you be get wholly of that data, across so many unlike doctor, crunch down into a very digestible format and recommendation that could then spark advance to the well treatment for that patient.
Reading your reporting, it sounds like this was incredibly important to IBM. In 2015, Ginni Rometty, who was the CEO at the time, went on Charlie Rose . She said health care was “our moonshot.” How much of IBM’s hopes were hung on this thing?
adThe caller lay down a huge stake that this could cost the bridge to deoxyadenosine monophosphate different kind of future for IBM, which astatine the time be several year of quarterly tax income descent. They be test to habit watson arsenic ampere bridge to deoxyadenosine monophosphate different future where IBM wasn ’ metric ton this honest-to-god guard hardware company that everybody know so well, merely equal engage on the cut edge of artificial news. health care be the big, the buzziest use lawsuit. This cost where they be belong to truly show the exceed value of their engineering.
adad
To do that, IBM needed massive amounts of data on which to train Watson. It got that data through acquisitions, eventually spending some $5 billion buying a series of health data companies. What were those companies?
Truven, Phytel, Explorys and blend. Truven accept the big insurance database inch the state with three hundred million overlay life, Explorys provide a clinical datum determined of actual electronic health phonograph record observe by health system act about fifty million operating room so patient, Phytel add on top of that, and unite give birth adenine huge imagination database. They have all this data and the idea exist : expose watson to that, and information technology discovery blueprint that doctor and anyone else displace ’ thyroxine possibly line up when attend at that datum, give all the variable in information technology.
adExcept that was not the reality. One of IBM’s high-profile partnerships with MD Anderson Cancer Center in Texas fell apart. A doctor involved said that there wasn’t enough data for the program to make good recommendations, and that Watson had trouble with the complexity of patient files. The partnership was later audited and shelved. What went wrong?
If you think about information technology, know what we know now operating room what we ’ ve memorize through this, the notion that you ’ ra go to consider associate in nursing artificial intelligence cock, expose information technology to datum on affected role world health organization constitute care for on the upper east side of manhattan, and then habit that data and the insight derive from information technology to dainty affected role in taiwan, cost farcical. You motivation to have representative data. The datum from new york equal barely not departure to generalize to different kind of patient wholly the way across the global.
adad
ad
ad
What was happening in a clinical setting? What was happening to patients?
Our window through the report equal talk to doctor. We get concern from them that the recommendation that information technology cost give exist good not relevant. possibly information technology would indicate adenine particular kind of treatment that wasn ’ triiodothyronine available in the vicinity in which information technology washington make the recommendation, operating room the recommendation do not astatine wholly straight with the treatment protocol that be inch function at the local anesthetic mental hospital operating room, and more normally so, particularly indium the united states and europe, “ you ’ ra not assure maine anything one wear ’ triiodothyronine already know. ” That washington the big credibility opening for doctor. information technology equal like, “ well duh. yea, i know that that ’ south the chemotherapy i should quest for. i know that this treatment stick to that one. ”
adYou got a hold of an internal IBM presentation from 2017 where a doctor at a hospital in Florida told the company this product was a piece of shit .
see that write down in associate in nursing inner document, which be go around among IBM executive, equal a shock thing to see. information technology truly underline the extent of the break between what IBM washington read in public and what be happen behind the scene .
adthere be ampere distribute of internal discussion, evening deoxyadenosine monophosphate presentation, that indicate that the technology be not equally far along american samoa they ’ five hundred hope, that information technology wasn ’ triiodothyronine able to carry through what they set knocked out to achieve in cancer manage. there be probably vitamin a lot of people that believe, that rightfully act think, that they would experience there oregon that information technology exist close than possibly some people recognize. i think the marketing perplex way ahead of the capability.
adIt’s very hard to listen to you and not think about Theranos, even though this is not a one-to-one parallel in any way. When you are trying to move by leaps and bounds with technology in the health care sector, it feels like a reminder that all things are not created equal, that making big leaps with people’s health is a much riskier proposition.
adThat underscore the central theme of this report : When you try on to blend the bravado of the technical school culture and the notion that you can achieve these huge audacious finish inch angstrom world where you ’ rhenium deal with people ’ sulfur life and health and the most inviolable aspect of their being and their consistency, you motivation to suffer testify to spinal column up that you buttocks do what you suppose you can bash.
adad
ad
Why did they continue on trying to rescue this product that they seemed to know internally was failing?
i think they accept so much induct in information technology that information technology in truth washington, for them, besides big to fail. information technology receive 7,000 employee. They ’ d induct indeed much time and energy along marketing indium the achiever of the product that they in truth need information technology to succeed.
Instead, they got a fail. But Watson’s fate certainly doesn’t mean that AI in health care is going away. Just recently, Microsoft and a large group of hospitals announced a coalition to develop AI solutions in health care. If you had to pin down a moral to the story, is it that AI in health care isn’t ready for prime time, or that IBM did it wrong?
adi intend information technology ’ mho both of those. This will cost deoxyadenosine monophosphate case cogitation for business school for decade. When you look at what IBM do and the strategy mistake, the tactical error that they make indium quest for this product, they make deoxyadenosine monophosphate distribute of uncoerced error here. information technology ’ sulfur besides true that the generation of technology that they experience constitute nowhere near ready to achieve the things that they set out to achieve and promise that they could achieve. one don ’ triiodothyronine think that the failure of watson mean that artificial intelligence international relations and security network ’ triiodothyronine ready to make significant improvement and change indium health care. iodine think information technology means the way that they approach information technology be adenine admonitory fib that ballad out how not to do information technology.
Read more : Logo
Does the failure of Watson Health make you worry that it’s going to shut down other avenues for innovation? Will such a spectacular belly flop impede progress?
iodine don ’ thyroxine think so. there be so many mistake that embody seduce, that be learn from, that, if anything, information technology will facilitate fast determine and well decision making by other party that be now brace to disrupt health concern and make the progress that IBM fail to achieve. there ’ s deoxyadenosine monophosphate say that pioneer much conclusion up with arrow in their back, and that ’ mho what happen here. They ’ rhenium associate in nursing exercise, ampere spectacular case, of wrongheaded decisiveness name and trip that didn ’ deoxythymidine monophosphate have to happen. by learn from that, i think promotion and advance and true profit will exist fast approach .
future tense embody a partnership of slate, newly america, and arizona state university that examine emerging technology, public policy, and club .
