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IBM Watson Introduces Cognitive Imaging to Boost Healthcare

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International Business Machines Corporation (IBM - Free Report) recently launched IBM Watson Imaging Clinical Review, a cognitive imaging offering, which happens to be the first of its kind from the Watson Health stable, at the Health IT Conference for 2017.

Additionally, the company announced that the Watson Health medical imaging collaborative has been expanded to 24 organizations globally to address eye, heart, brain, breast and related conditions further.

IBM’s cognitive imaging offering will initially address cardiovascular diseases such as aortic stenosis which currently affects nearly 1.5 million people in the U.S. IBM intends to expand the coverage to nine additional cardiovascular conditions such as valve disorders, deep vein thrombosis, cardiomyopathy (a heart muscle disease) and myocardial infractions (heart attacks) in the long run. 

International Business Machines Corporation Price and Consensus

How Cognitive Imaging Works?

The Watson Health Imaging Clinical Review was designed by the members of the Watson Health medical imaging collaborative that comprises of academic medical centers, private radiology practices, leading health systems, imaging technology companies and ambulatory radiology providers.

The objective of the cognitive imaging offering is to utilize medical imaging techniques to identify as well as predict the chances of getting affected with diseases such as cancer, eye diseases, diabetes and other diseases related to the heart, brain and other related conditions.

It utilizes cognitive text analytics to verify whether the doctor’s remarks regarding a particular patient were entered into the electronic health record (EMR), the diagnosis list and the billing records.

IBM’s cognitive imaging offering is a targeted artificial intelligence tool that has the potential to help the healthcare providers standardize their healthcare services and build a database of patient data which could be utilized to enhance their healthcare offerings.

Moreover, the cognitive imaging solution is capable of enabling the healthcare providers to gain enhanced insights into the patient condition and provide better and personalized care.

What Does this Mean for IBM?

Per an IDC report, worldwide spending on cognitive systems and artificial intelligence is expected to reach over $47 billion by 2020 which is currently growing at a CAGR of 55.1%.

Given the huge opportunity the sector has to offer, there is fierce competition in the space with the presence of major players such as Microsoft (MSFT - Free Report) , Google (GOOGL - Free Report) and Apple.

However, we believe that IBM is well positioned to take on the competition head on and such introductions are a step in the right direction that augur well in the long run.


Stock Performance Overview

Shares of IBM have underperformed the Zacks Computer - Integrated Systems industry over the last one year. While the industry gained 40.2%, the stock appreciated only 31.2%.

The underperformance of the stock could be attributed to the transition to the cloud, weakness in traditional businesses, lower IT spending, integration risks and increasing competition.

However, the company’s strategic growth initiatives such as cognitive solutions, cloud computing, mobile and social businesses are expected to drive growth in the coming years.

Zacks Rank

At present, IBM carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

A better-ranked stock in the broader technology space is Digi International Inc. (DGII - Free Report) carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 (Strong Buy) Rank stocks here.

Notably, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for Digi International’s current year has improved to 43 cents from 42 cents in the last 60 days.

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