The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs will deploy IBM's Watson technology as it builds its clinical reasoning system to help physicians make evidence-based primary care decisions. The Veterans Health Administration will also use Watson to help treat veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder.

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As the amount of digitized medical data doubles every three years or so, greatly increasing the size and complexity of electronic health records – some patients' EHRs now approach 100 MB of data – Watson's cognitive capabilities will help VHA clinicians quickly make sense of troves of health information at once, enabling them to uncover patterns and insights toward better care, say IBM officals.

According to the VA’s National Center for PTSD, there are approximately 21.6 million veterans in the United States, and as many as 20 percent of those who served in Iraq and Afghanistan are impacted with PTSD. Additionally, 12 percent of Gulf War veterans and 15 percent of Vietnam veterans suffer from PTSD.

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This project is based partly on a separate collaboration with Cleveland Clinic, where IBM is applying Watson technology to EHRs to help clinicians process medical records and help physicians make more informed decisions.

Many EHRs aren't used to their fullest potential, thanks to discrepancies in how patient data is recorded, collected and organized across healthcare systems and organizations, IBM officials point out. Watson can help correlate what’s in the EHR with medical literature and research articles, making that data more meaningful at the point of care.

The VA will use capabilities of IBM's cloud-based Watson Discovery Advisor to analyze the healthcare data of its patients; the technology aims to reduce the time physicians need to test hypotheses and formulate conclusions that can advance their work – from months to just hours – bringing new levels of speed and precision to research and development.

As part of the VHA's clinical reasoning system, meanwhile, Watson will ingest hundreds of thousands of documents – medical records and research papers – to help physicians deliver better care.

"There’s no more important challenge than improving healthcare for our veterans and we’ve seen how Watson can assist medical professionals and make it easier for them to capture insight from so many sources and make more informed decisions," officials added. "VA is poised to join other key healthcare industry leaders who are already pioneering the use of cognitive computing in healthcare."

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