IBM recently held the "Cognitive Coffee" conference in Jaffa where, among other things, medical applications were also presented, including Teva's smart inhaler, a project to treat pregnant women in general health services, as well as a system for recruiting cancer patients for medical trials
The interest in cognitive computing in Israel is increasing. When IBM held its first event in this field four years ago, several dozen participants came. Last week, at the conference held at the "Please Touch" center in the port of Jaffa, hundreds of professionals already participated: entrepreneurs, developers, representatives of companies and organizations operating in the field, and academics.
The CEO of IBM Israel, Rick Kaplan, explained that according to the concept that guides the company, "cognitive computing is not a game, or something that is done so that people will say it is 'cute.' We are thinking about raising the level of expertise in the world." According to this principle, IBM put the unique capabilities of the Watson system in the field of answering questions and searching in unstructured databases at the service of doctors at the world's leading cancer research center, Sloan Keating, who use these tools to improve the expertise of doctors in the field of oncology anywhere in the world. "We are opening this platform to everyone. We want you to take Watson and harness it to your dreams," Kaplan said.
David Bar, the leader of the analytical analysis field at IBM Israel, pointed out that while the field of Big Data makes data useful - cognitive computing makes it possible to turn this data into practical applications. Barr emphasized that the cognitive tools are available not only to huge companies but also to small companies. IBM's cloud platform allows any organization to do more with its data - and offer new options to its customers.
Teva connects the inhalers of the patients - to a global information network of health recommendations
One of the pioneers in the use of analytical tools - and combining technologies from the world of the Internet of Things (IoT) with advanced analysis capabilities - is the pharmaceutical company Teva. Guy Hadari, Senior Vice President and Director of Teva's Information Technologies, presented at the conference the process by which the drug manufacturing process will work for the concept of personalized medicine. Compared to the situation today, where medicines are produced uniformly - the production processes are going to change fundamentally. "Eventually they will produce medicines in an individual format", says Hadri. In the meantime, Teva is working on a project in which inhalers will be linked to respiratory medications through a mobile app, providing information about the use of the medication and the environmental and weather conditions at the point where the patient is - in order to present a comprehensive picture of morbidity, and to recommend to patients when it is appropriate to take medication to prevent an attack, and when it is desirable Staying at home due to high levels of air pollution that may worsen the patient's condition.
"The healthcare system in the US has become complex, complicated and too expensive. The problem is that no one knows what happens when you leave the pharmacy: 50% of people do not take their medicines as prescribed. Not taking medication increases the number of hospitalizations. Teva is trying to create a digital connection between the drug and the manufacturer. When you take a bullet a piece of information will be generated. This data will be analyzed by Watson, and will come back to you with a new value," predicts Hadri. "Every day, Teva medicines reach 200 million people. In the future, the pills will have a chip that will report their intake. Taking a drug out of the package will generate a report. We are fundamentally changing the relationship between the patient and the pharmaceutical company," says Teva's VP. At the same time, he emphasizes that "the doctor is not left out of the equation. If the doctor has information about the behavior and medication consumption in real time - his ability to receive information about what happened to the patient between the previous visit and the current visit - will be greater. The doctor should be involved in the relevant parts and in real time. His role will change. His ability to use time will be better. His ability to make decisions will be much better. Medicine will be accessible even in areas where it is not currently available."
Watson improves care for pregnant women
Ruth Eliezer leads the BI field at United Health Fund. Presented a cognitive computing project based on Watson, carried out at the checkout, to improve the treatment of pregnant women. The project focuses on the first trimester of pregnancy, which largely determines the child's future and health. The cashiers use Watson and the system based on it, in order to analyze the summary of a pregnant woman's visit as it was prepared by the doctor, in real time - and provide recommendations to improve the quality of the doctor's care. "Doctors are a difficult people, and at the first stage they did not understand the grade they were getting from the system, and opposed it. Later, they saw in practice that the system presented cases in which they missed a recommendation or an action that should have been taken - and began to believe in the system. We started to improve the quality of care," says Eliezer.
In the next phase of the activity, the national health fund focused on locating women who smoke during pregnancy - even without them clearly declaring their smoking. For this purpose, the Watson system examines the entire history of the woman's medical treatment, analyzes all the texts in the summaries of previous visits to the doctor and identifies women who smoke - and presents an intervention plan and a recommendation to prevent smoking during pregnancy.
In another application, Watson condenses PDF files of hospitalization and hospital visit summaries, and presents recommendations for instructions to be delivered by a cash register nurse. In order to optimize the treatment of the flu, the system builds a real-time map of streets and neighborhoods where the disease is breaking out. The same mapping technology was used during the last wave of fires to present a map of patients with respiratory diseases who may be affected by inhaling the smoke of the fires.
The challenge: to overcome the doctor's conservatism
Dr. Ran Blitzer, from Klalit Health Services, pointed out at the conference that the world of medicine is characterized by a high level of conservatism, which we must now deal with. "Classical medicine is based on the intuition of the individual doctor and a small number of items of information on which he is based. Today, we move into hundreds and thousands of such items. The ability to rely on a machine contradicts the doctor's intuition - and it is still required to ensure better treatment." About five years ago, the Klalit Hospital Fund developed a first-of-its-kind algorithm that makes it possible to identify in advance patients who may develop severe kidney disease - and to offer them preventive treatment. The technology has proven itself - and still, Dr. Blitzer warns that "the problem is that doctors are in no hurry to adopt new tools. Too little energy and thinking is devoted to how these users are assimilated and educated."
According to Dr. Michal Rosen Zvi, a senior member of IBM's research laboratories, "it is not easy for people to accept external intervention - and for doctors, sometimes, it is even more difficult."
Recruiting patients for research in the field of cancer - on the basis of Big Data
Nir Erez, from the company TrialIn, presented at the conference the way in which cognitive systems allow to match and adapt clinical trials of new drugs and treatments - to cancer patients who need these treatments, and may save their lives. "Clinical studies are now an opportunity for patients to receive the best treatments that are not yet available. Today, only in the field of immunotherapy - cancer medicine based on the body's immune system - 803 studies are being conducted worldwide, of which 43 are open to patients in Israel. The concept of Big Data is relevant in the world of oncology - due to the possibility of using this data in order to offer the patient the most suitable study for his disease profile".
The innovation gallery, which accompanied the conference, included a look at a wide range of possible tools and applications that rely on cognitive computing capabilities. Thus, for example, smart city systems were introduced that combine data from a wide variety of sensors and sources in order to optimize the set of infrastructures and services for residents; A comprehensive system for managing the customer experience and customer journey in multiple contact channels with the service provider; cloud analytics platform; An auxiliary tool for radiologists that helps decipher imaging images of mammography examinations, a system of sensors integrated into the safety helmet and the safety jacket of workers in metal factories who are exposed to harsh environmental conditions - and warn of health risks, and an augmented reality system that presents the technician handling the equipment in the field with the instructional literature pertaining to the item he is looking at at a given moment, while projecting the data of this digit directly onto the lenses of the glasses he is wearing, or providing them through voice assistance.
More on the subject on the science website
to improve the human touch of the robots (another report from the same conference)
Is it necessary to fear smart robots?
In not many years none of us will have a job and we will have to prepare for that
