by Angela Guess
Mark Hagland recently wrote in Healthcare Informatics, “In a wide-ranging keynote address that included aspirational statements, updates, and announcements, Ginni Rometty, the chairwoman, president, and CEO of the Armonk, N.Y.-based IBM, on Tuesday morning shared her vision of cognitive computing with attendees at the World Health Care Congress, being held this week at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel in Washington, D.C. Telling her audience that ‘Healthcare has been central to us for a long time,’ Rometty framed the broad work that IBM is doing in cognitive computing in terms of what she sees as its potential to change the healthcare industry in three fundamental ways: with regard to ‘how to reinvent discovery,’ how to ‘help change how delivery happens,’ and how to ‘transform wellness.’ Indeed, she said, ‘Cognitive computing is the future of healthcare,’ and said that IBM’s work in that area, embodied in its development of IBM Watson, its cognitive computing entity, which IBM data scientists and technologists are using to transform knowledge in a broad range of areas.”
Hagland continues, “Framing IBM’s broad strategic thrust around cognitive computing, Rometty told her audience, ‘Analytics, cloud, mobile—those are all very important to be a part of the digital society and economy. But when everyone’s digital, then what? I always think of digital as foundational; I believe it is disruptive… It is the dawn of a new era. Think of digital business and business intelligence put together, and that will give you cognitive,’ she said. Very importantly, she said, ‘It’s data that’s visible and invisible.’ In fact, she said, in terms of the digital data available worldwide, the volume of that data is hard to comprehend, as it is now estimated to fill 150 exabytes, or ‘3 million times all the written books in the world. This year, the volume of digital data will reach one zettabyte, or the equivalent of 30 million times all the data in all the books in the world.’ And yet, she quickly added, 80 percent of data is unstructured, and in healthcare, that means data in such stores as doctors’ notes, patient monitoring machines, wearables, and sound forms.”
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