Today in 1972, IBM’s Data Processing Division announced the IBM Health Care Support Electrocardiogram Analysis program, a computer program for cardiologists.
Almost 40 years later, the Wall Street Journal reported on the first commercial application of IBM Watson, to be used by health insurer WellPoint to help suggest treatment options and diagnoses to doctors: “Researchers have been trying since the 1970s to develop computers that can advise doctors, but the efforts haven’t gotten much traction. Now, though, the health industry is under unprecedented pressure to digitize. At the same time, medical providers are increasingly paid based at least partly on quality-of-care measures.”
In September 2015, IBM opened its Watson Health global headquarters in Cambridge, Mass.
In “What Ever Happened to IBM’s Watson?” Steve Lohr wrote in 2021:
[Even after a number of high-profile healthcare failures] IBM continued to invest in the health industry, including billions on Watson Health, which was created as a separate business in 2015. That includes more than $4 billion to acquire companies with medical data, billing records and diagnostic images on hundreds of millions of patients. Much of that money, it seems clear, they are never going to get back.
In 2022, IBM sold Watson Health’s assets to investment firm Francisco Partners.