"Watson," a supercomputer developed by IBM to compete on the popular show Jeopardy, may transform the delivery of healthcare in the 21st century. While having success on a game show and saving lives seem to be on different playing fields, the same tools that Watson utilizes to out-perform contestants on Jeopardy could potentially be used to diagnose sick patients.

Watson was programmed to process data entry and deliver probabilistic assessments of different possibilities. Just as Watson processes clues from Jeopardy to derive an answer, Watson could process a patient's symptoms, medical history, lab results, and physician findings to diagnose a patient. Computer systems have assisted in clinical decision-making for several decades, but they were heavily reliant on manual user input till now. Watson is special because it can take facts gathered in natural language from a patient exam and generate potential diagnoses based on medical textbooks, case reports, and other medical pools of knowledge.

The Institute of Medicine reported that nearly 98,000 deaths each year are due to medical errors in hospitals, making misdiagnosis the fifth leading cause of death in the United States. Misdiagnosis most commonly stems from doctors being fixated on one diagnosis, or taking shortcuts by settling on a diagnosis that is familiar and easily treatable. Watson's superior memory and unparalleled processing capabilities allow it to examine all medical evidence available, without resorting to cognitive shortcuts - minimizing bias when making diagnostic decisions.

Watson presents a number of advantages. It would empower non-physician health providers to play a greater role in patient care, and help alleviate the shortage of physicians we are experiencing in the United States. It could also minimize bias and error in decision making, provide better care through an evidence-based practice, and lower healthcare costs through cost/benefit analysis and elimination of economic conflicts of interest.

While there are major advantages to using Watson in medicine, it also raises some difficult questions. What will be the new roles for physicians and nurses when the current hierarchy determined by varying levels of medical knowledge is made equal by a machine? How will patient outcomes be affected by patient-machine interactions? Who will be held accountable for medical errors that arise from decisions made by a machine? While there are a few grey areas when determining if Watson will be the next revolution in healthcare, it is certain that it already possesses the capability.