IBM has landed a deal to provide a version of its Watson artificial intelligence platform to oncologists at 21 hospitals across China.
IBM is partnering with Hangzhou CognitiveCare to make its Watson for Oncology software available to hospitals across the country. Hangzhou CognitiveCare is a sales and service firm that was formed in January 2016 and is dedicated to artificial intelligence applications.
Under the deal, Hangzhou CognitiveCare will provide sales, service, and customer support, as well as localization of Watson's information, for oncologists in China. Watson for Oncology will initially be available only in English, with Hangzhou CognitiveCare translating some information such as drug labels and treatment guidelines, in addition to localizing dosing guidelines based on Chinese criteria.
IBM noted that cancer is on the rise in the Asia-Pacific region, and it is the leading cause of death in China, with 4.3 million new cancer cases and 2.8 cancer deaths in 2015. Doctors in China are increasingly having difficulty staying up to date with best practices and the latest research in oncology, IBM said.
Watson for Oncology is designed to help oncologists by summarizing patient medical records and scoring and ranking medical literature to help guide treatment decisions. IBM developed Watson in collaboration with Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and the application draws on 300 medical journals, more than 200 textbooks, and nearly 15 million pages of text.
