ARMONK, NY and JUPITER, FL - 01 Feb 2017: IBM (NYSE: IBM) and Jupiter Medical Center today announced that Jupiter will adopt Watson for Oncology trained by Memorial Sloan Kettering, a cognitive computing platform to provide insights to physicians to help them deliver personalized, evidence-based cancer treatment. Jupiter is the first U.S. community hospital to adopt Watson for Oncology, which will go live at the facility in the beginning of March.

 

Dr. Abraham Schwarzberg, MD, chief of oncology at Jupiter Medical Center in Palm Beach County, Florida, reviews recommendations generated by IBM Watson for Oncology.

In the U.S., there will be an estimated 1.7M new cancer cases this year, with 125,000 in Florida alone(1). As healthcare providers and systems seek to enable data-driven, evidence-based cancer care, an explosion of medical information has created both challenges and opportunities to improve quality care. Currently, approximately 50,000 oncology research papers are published annually,(2) and by 2020 medical information is projected to double every 73 days(3), outpacing the ability of humans to keep up with the proliferation of medical knowledge.

 

Watson for Oncology provides information to oncologists to help them deliver evidence-based treatment options by analyzing massive volumes of medical literature to identify individualized treatment options and scaling access to oncology expertise. Watson for Oncology draws from more than 300 medical journals, more than 200 textbooks, and nearly 15 million pages of text to provide insights about different treatment options and also provides oncologists with information regarding drug options and administration instructions. Watson also ranks the evidence-based treatment options, linking to peer reviewed studies and clinical guidelines. Its machine-learning capability means it continuously learns, gaining in value and knowledge over time.

”At Jupiter Medical Center, we are committed to pioneering new approaches to medicine and health care,” said John D. Couris, President and CEO of Jupiter Medical Center. “Watson for Oncology is part of our significant investment in creating a world-class cancer program and we are proud to be the first U.S. community hospital to arm our clinical team with this cutting-edge technology.”

“In communities across the country and around the world, there is a growing need for tools that help increase efficiency and enable quick access to important information from the collective body of cancer knowledge available today,” said Rob Merkel, Vice President of Oncology and Genomics, IBM Watson Health. “In adopting Watson for Oncology, Jupiter Medical Center joins world-class facilities that are offering the power of Watson to their physicians as the need for cognitive computing in cancer care becomes increasingly clear.”

IBM and MSK have been accelerating Watson for Oncology’s training; Watson for Oncology is now available to assist clinicians in developing treatment plans for breast, lung, colorectal, cervical, ovarian and gastric cancers. IBM and MSK plan to train Watson on at least 9 additional cancer types this year, covering nearly 80 percent of the worldwide incidence of cancer.

“We were impressed by Watson’s analytical ability to help provide relevant treatment options for patients to allow physicians to personalize patient care in an unparalleled way,” said Abraham Schwarzberg, MD, Chief of Oncology at Jupiter Medical Center. “Harnessing the power of Watson will help our oncology multidisciplinary team identify individual treatments. As one of the first in the country to implement this incredible tool, Jupiter Medical Center continues to be a regional leader in integrating technology to provide cutting-edge clinical care.”

“Identifying the right course of treatment for cancer patients has always been challenging but today’s rapid pace of discovery creates new dilemmas in oncology clinical decision support,” says Nancy Fabozzi, Principal Analyst for Digital Health with Frost & Sullivan. “Keeping up with the pace of change is difficult enough for oncologists at the most sophisticated medical centers—and can be near impossible for those practicing in community settings with fewer resources. Watson for Oncology could reshape how oncologists derive insights that enable evidence-based decision making for their patients.”

Sources

[1] American Cancer Society, Cancer Facts and Figures, accessed at: https://www.cancer.org/research/cancer-facts-statistics/all-cancer-facts-figures/cancer-facts-figures-2017.html

[2] PubMed, accessed at pubmed.com

[3] Densen, Peter, Challenges and Opportunities Facing Medical Education 2011. Transactions in the American Clinical and Climatological Association. Accessed at https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3116346/

About Jupiter Medical Center 
A not-for-profit 327-bed regional medical center consisting of 207 private acute-care hospital beds and 120 long-term care, sub-acute rehabilitation and Hospice beds, Jupiter Medical Center is reimagining how to restore the community’s health and wellness. Award-winning physicians, world-class partnerships and innovative techniques and technology enable Jupiter Medical Center to provide a broad range of services with specialty concentrations in cardiology, oncology, imaging, orthopedics & spine, digestive health, emergency services, lung & thoracic, women’s health, weight management and men’s health. Founded in 1979, Jupiter Medical Center has approximately 1,500 team members, 575 physicians and 640 volunteers. Jupiter Medical Center continues to perform in the top 10% of hospitals for patient quality and satisfaction. For more information on Jupiter Medical Center, please call (561) 263-2234 or visit Jupitermed.com.

About IBM Watson Health
Watson is the first commercially available cognitive computing capability representing a new era in computing. The system, delivered through the cloud, analyzes high volumes of data, understands complex questions posed in natural language, and proposes evidence-based answers. Watson continuously learns, gaining in value and knowledge over time, from previous interactions. In April 2015, the company launched IBM Watson Health and the Watson Health Cloud platform. The new unit will help improve the ability of doctors, researchers and insurers to innovate by surfacing insights from the massive amount of personal health data being created and shared daily. The Watson Health Cloud can mask patient identities and allow for information to be shared and combined with a dynamic and constantly growing aggregated view of clinical, research and social health data. For more information on IBM Watson, visit: ibm.com/watson. For more information on IBM Watson Health, visit: ibm.com/watsonhealth.