AI-ENABLED SOLUTIONS FOR MEDICAL IMAGING

IBM Watson Imaging

Clinical Review and
IBM Watson Imaging
Patient Synopsis
Watson Health © IBM Corporation 2018
Contents
03 The Watson Health Imaging Vision
05 IBM Watson Imaging Patient Synopsis
08 IBM Watson Imaging Clinical Review
10 Looking forward
The Watson Health
Imaging Vision
Watson Health aims to bring the power of AI to healthcare
to expand the physician’s view so they have greater
confidence in diagnostic and treatment decisions for their
patients.
We are building next-generation solutions for medical
imaging professionals, powered by Watson technology,
which intends to understand, reason, and interact with
data and people. Specifically, we seek to help clinicians:
1. S
 ee expansively by harnessing the power of AI to search
text and image data to identify contextually-relevant
information.
2. R
 ecognize reliably by aggregating and displaying
information that may otherwise be easily overlooked.
3. C
 ommunicate objectively by analyzing structured and
unstructured patient data and presenting insights for
physicians’ consideration.
IBM Watson Imaging Clinical Review and IBM Watson
Imaging Patient Synopsis form our initial wave of
commercially available offerings. Leveraging text analytics
to inform care decisions, they are the first steps in an
exciting journey to help transform medical imaging across
the globe.
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Watson Health © IBM Corporation 2018
IBM Watson
Imaging Patient
Synopsis

Radiologists are a crucial, consultative part of the patient

care team. However, obstacles to communication, siloed
data, increasingly high output expectations and numerous
distractions present growing challenges to their already
complex role.

Radiologists are inherent multi-taskers, spending just one

third of their time interpreting images.1 Their work days
are dynamic and full of interruptions, making effectiveness
in the reading room an ongoing challenge, even for highly-
trained specialists.

When there are unusual presentations or unclear

indications in a given imaging study, radiologists may
require additional information to make their diagnoses,
which means sifting through an overwhelming amount of
patient data in the EHR. And, since 80 percent of EHR data
is unstructured,2 and radiologists often do not perceive
EHRs as user-friendly, this crucial task of finding additional
information can consume valuable time and in some cases
may increase the risk of critical data not being considered.

Patient Synopsis is a radiologist-trained AI tool that

aims to efficiently inform confident care decisions by
extracting relevant patient information from the EHR and
projecting that data via a single-view summary in sync
with PACS.

Patient Synopsis, a cloud-based solution that can integrate

with your existing systems, provides patient context from
a comprehensive list of data sources — in a matter of
seconds.

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Radiologist trained
Patient Synopsis has been trained by radiologists for radiologists,
taking into consideration what they believe to be important in their
day-to-day tasks.

96
radiologists trained
2
institutions provided
Patient Synopsis de-identified clinical
notes

4,000 12
clinical notes were categories of patient
Patient Synopsis considers:
• History of present illness
• Previous encounters

analyzed, including data were defined for • Past procedures

treatment notes, the Patient Synopsis • Medications
radiology reports and summary
• Indications from diagnostic
surgical notes
reports

1
• Social and family history
• Demographics
• Vitals
template applies to • Allergies
all data, structured
• Labs
and unstructured

“We value our relationship with IBM Watson Health because we want to be on the forefront of
imaging. Watson Imaging Patient Synopsis is an important step in the right direction. Its cognitive
ability strives to present a patient synopsis “front sheet,” with the most relevant and critical clinical
information readily accessible while interpreting images. With this clinical insight easily available,
radiologists can make better decisions and become more important consultants to patients’ clinical
care teams.”
Larry Elgarresta, MD, VP, Radiology Associates of South Florida, Baptist Health South Florida

Watson Health © IBM Corporation 2018

7
IBM Watson For physicians, EHRs are a common source of frustration due
to factors such as poor usability, interruptions in workflow and

Imaging Clinical disorganized/inconsistent data and documentation.3 At the same time,

data discrepancies in medical documentation can be harmful at both

Review the patient and system level. Given these challenges, there is a need
to reconcile discrepancies between clinical reports and EHR records.

Clinical Review is a retrospective AI-enabled data review tool that

helps support a reliable patient record in order to drive accurate,
timely and coordinated care decisions.

• C
 linical Review highlights both primary diagnosis and incidental
findings that may be missing from the patient’s problem list.

• C
 linical Review may likely limit the need to re-test patients,
supporting timely care decisions.

• C
 linical Review keeps a patient’s problem list up to date
throughout his or her journey, which may be non-linear and span
multiple specialties.

Watson Health © IBM Corporation 2018

How Clinical Review works
Clinical Review helps achieve a reliable patient record by enabling
the reconciliation of discrepancies across multiple data sources.
Specifically, Clinical Review:

1. Interprets structured and unstructured data read in clinical

reports
2. Compares clinical reports with the EHR problem list
3. Alerts the user to potential discrepancies, including
incidental findings and primary diagnoses

While Clinical Review 1.0 focused on aortic stenosis, Clinical

Review 2.0 addresses 24 highly-prevalent diagnoses that have
significant impact on the patient and the healthcare system. It is
designed to:
One retrospective feasibility
• T ackle complexity by including diagnoses like heart disease test* examined 1,129 patients
and cancer, which rank among leading causes of death. who were potentially at risk
• Address comorbidity since many diseases that are highly of having aortic stenosis (AS).
prevalent can exist in conjunction with other diagnoses. It showed the provider had
• Deal with costly diseases such as stroke and heart failure,
identified 421 AS patients
which require numerous resources and are financially costly to
who were having their AS
the overall healthcare system.
managed according to their
EHR. In addition, using
cognitive text analytics, IBM
Clinical Review seeks to evaluate identified an additional 23
percent of patients whose
High-Morbidity original echocardiogram
Diseases / Events
report documented evidence
Chronic Acute That Can Lead to
of AS, but this finding was not
Signs Conditions Conditions Readmission
Cardiomegaly Artery Disease Hemorrhage Arrhythmia
documented in the EHR.
Dyspnea Cardiomyopathy Infarction Atherosclerosis *Feasibility test conducted by IBM and a
Edema Fibrillation Pericardial Cancer large health provider
Effusion
Hypertrophy Hypertension Pneumothorax Heart Failure
Hyperlipidemia Stroke Pneumonia
Stenosis Thrombosis Renal Failure
Sclerosis
Valve
Regurgitation

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 While Clinical Review and Patient Synopsis leverage

Looking Watson text analytics to inform care decisions, future

solutions will aim to empower providers with insights

forward derived from Watson image analytics, starting with breast

imaging and later addressing other organs such as the
brain, heart and lung.

About Watson Health Imaging

Watson Health Imaging, a segment of IBM Watson Health,
is a leading provider of innovative cognitive computing,
enterprise imaging and interoperability solutions that
seek to advance healthcare. Its Merge branded enterprise
imaging solutions facilitate the management, sharing and
storage of billions of patient medical images.

With solutions that have been used by providers for more

than 25 years, Watson Health Imaging is helping to reduce
costs, improve efficiencies and enhance the quality of
healthcare worldwide.

To learn more about Patient Synopsis, Clinical

Review and our vision for future AI-enabled
solutions, visit merge.com/ai.

Watson Health © IBM Corporation 2018

© Copyright IBM Watson Health 2018
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IASO-1487, Rev 1.0

1
Radiologists spend only a third of their time reading images. Aunt Minnie. Oct 2013.

Factors Affecting Physician Professional Satisfaction and Their Implications for Patient
2

Care, Health Systems, and Health Policy. Rand Health. 2013.

IBM Big Data in a Minute: Transforming unstructured data into better healthcare
3

outcomes. IBM Big Data & Analytics Hub. Aug. 26, 2014.

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Watson Health © IBM Corporation 2018