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The National Library of Medicine <http://www.nlm.nih.gov/> is working on a
search engine that will scan thousands of medical records to turn up
documents related to patient queries. That sounds exactly like what Google
and Bing can already do, but it���s different.

It will employ Watson-like search and retrieval techniques to return a very
specific set of one to three documents.
Watson<http://www-03.ibm.com/innovation/us/watson/index.html>,
IMB���s robot with artificial intelligence capabilities,
smashed*Jeopardy!* records
when it appeared on the gameshow last year. One trait that makes Watson
intelligent is that the computer can understand natural language as opposed
to a Google query (i.e. ���cure common cold��� instead of ���what���s the cure for
the common cold?���), something that researchers at the National Library of
Medicine (NLM) want to try to replicate with their own machine.

Another characteristic of intelligent computers is that they learn. This
occurs over time and through repetition.

���In order to train the machine we had to have a large set of questions in
the vernacular, not cleaned up to grammar, and we had to have a lot of
associated, or reasonably associated, answers,��� Dr. Milton Corn, deputy
director for research and education at NLM, said.

Having a database of answers ��� not just questions ��� is key because when the
computer turns up a wrong answer, researchers need to show the computer
what the right answer looks like. Corn said NLM gets millions of queries
from patients every year, but they���re answered through results generated by
NLM���s databases PubMed <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/> and
MedlinePlus<http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/>,
as opposed to health care professionals.

In his search for a set of published medical questions and answers, Corn
came across Ask the Doctor <http://www.askthedoctor.com/>, a Canadian
website where doctors answer individual patient questions. Ask the Doctor
agreed to share a set of about 8,000 medical questions and their answers
with NLM for its artificial intelligence project.

Right now the computer is in Rocky Balboa mode.

Researchers are training it by feeding it questions, then feeding it
answers and testing it. Then they repeat the process. The major hurdle for
the computer is getting to a point where it can understand natural language.

And if the machine ever becomes ready for public use, patients, too, will
have to be trained to approach the Q&A process differently. Patients will
need to phrase their questions like they���re talking to their doctor, not
Google. This will lay the groundwork for the possible incorporation of
voice technology later on.

Is NLM also laying the groundwork for computer replacement of physicians?
Not quite.

���We are not contemplating ��� unless this were an unbelievably fantastic
success ��� letting a machine practice medicine,��� Corn said.

If this early stage does prove to be successful, the project might expand
with a partnership with IBM, which has expressed an interest in working
with NLM.

���We would like to see whether Watson could be adapted to health questions,���
Corn said.

But first, Watson will be in for some medical education.

���It doesn���t know much about health at the moment,��� Corn said.