Artificial intelligence and 3-D printing are rifling through the healthcare arena, and the physician of tomorrow may be more computer than human, Fortune reports. Here's what you need to know. 1. Healthcare executives from IBM Watson and athenahealth debated the future of supercomputers in healthcare at Fortune's Brainstorm Health Conference on Nov. 1, 2016. 2. AI can recommend treatment plans in rural parts of the U.S., India and China where traditional physicians are in demand. 3. In an example case IBM's Watson, a supercomputer, could be used to read a patient's EHR, analyzed images of a tumor and sequence its gene sequencing as it develops a potential treatment plan for a cancer patient. 4. The experts agreed AI and 3-D printing will not replace human physicians, but they will make them more effective. Athenahealth CEO Jonathan Bush said during the conference, "The human is wrong so freaking often, it's a massacre." Watson could make a physician's job easier by narrowing down X-rays or CT scans to provide relevant information faster and make reaching a diagnosis easier. Source
