不久前，多家頂尖科技公司商定按統(tǒng)一標(biāo)準(zhǔn)打造醫(yī)療保健產(chǎn)品，方便醫(yī)院更共享醫(yī)療數(shù)據(jù)。開放式標(biāo)準(zhǔn)和規(guī)格的另一目標(biāo)是鼓勵(lì)“無障礙數(shù)據(jù)交換”。

對(duì)醫(yī)療專業(yè)人員和患者來說，亞馬遜、谷歌、IBM、微軟、甲骨文和Salesforce達(dá)成的這項(xiàng)協(xié)議是個(gè)好消息，因?yàn)檎莆崭嘈畔⒖赡苡兄谘杆賹?shí)施診治。如果設(shè)想中的高效率成為現(xiàn)實(shí)，或許還能節(jié)省不少成本。

就醫(yī)療保健IT市場(chǎng)今后的競(jìng)爭(zhēng)力而言，這些標(biāo)準(zhǔn)的開放性也是非常好的消息，因?yàn)閷?duì)規(guī)模不如當(dāng)前這些企業(yè)的公司來說，市場(chǎng)準(zhǔn)入門檻會(huì)降低。

另外，這項(xiàng)協(xié)議顯然有利于簽約各方，不僅因?yàn)榇伺e將擴(kuò)大潛在市場(chǎng)，而且有助于實(shí)現(xiàn)人工智能方面的遠(yuǎn)大目標(biāo)。如果處理得當(dāng)，更多數(shù)據(jù)就能讓人工智能更聰明。

各家公司確實(shí)都需要更聰明的人工智能。想想IBM和沃森大系統(tǒng)，沃森最近還成了《華爾街日?qǐng)?bào)》的抨擊對(duì)象，主要內(nèi)容是十幾名客戶以及合作伙伴已縮小合作規(guī)模，或終止用沃森治療癌癥的試驗(yàn)。

《華爾街日?qǐng)?bào)》的報(bào)道稱：“在許多情況下，人工智能工具并未創(chuàng)造出多大的價(jià)值。處理某些病歷時(shí)沃森不夠準(zhǔn)確，會(huì)因?yàn)楹币娀虬┌Y復(fù)發(fā)缺乏數(shù)據(jù)而出錯(cuò)，治療情況變化的速度明顯超過人類培訓(xùn)師更新沃森系統(tǒng)的速度?！?

這里的教訓(xùn)告訴我們要實(shí)際地看待AI目前的發(fā)展水平。但也可以做出另一種解讀，也許對(duì)一家公司來說醫(yī)療保健領(lǐng)域過于復(fù)雜，無論多么令人尊敬，也不管資源多豐富，企業(yè)很難單打獨(dú)斗提供所有價(jià)值。如果情況確實(shí)如此，就很有必要制定協(xié)議破除條塊分割開放市場(chǎng)，而且很有希望挽救更多生命。（財(cái)富中文網(wǎng)）

Some of the biggest tech giants yesterday agreed to build health care products that use a common set of standards in order to make it easier to share medical data across hospitals. What’s more, these are open standards and specifications aimed at encouraging “frictionless data exchange.”

The agreement between Amazon, Google, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle and Salesforce is good news for medical professionals and their patients, because having more information at hand potentially aids speedy diagnosis and treatment. If the promised efficiencies materialize, there may even be savings on the horizon.

The openness of the standards is also very good news for the future competitiveness of the health care IT market, because it should lower the barriers to entry for companies that aren’t at the scale that these giants currently enjoy.

But the deal is also clearly good for its signatories, not only because it expands their potential markets, but because it will help feed their artificial intelligence ambitions. More data, if properly wrangled, translates to smarter AI.

And the companies need smarter AI. Consider the case of IBM and its marquee Watson system, which was recently the subject of quite the takedown by the Wall Street Journal. It turns out that more than a dozen clients and partners have scaled down or ended their experiments with using Watson in cancer treatment.

Here’s the relevant bit from that piece: “In many cases, the tools didn’t add much value. In some cases, Watson wasn’t accurate. Watson can be tripped up by a lack of data in rare or recurring cancers, and treatments are evolving faster than Watson’s human trainers can update the system.”

There’s a lesson in here about taking a realistic view of where AI’s development stands today. But there’s another takeaway too: perhaps health care is too sprawling an environment for one company, no matter how venerable and well-resourced, to provide all the value that’s needed on its own. If that’s the case, then there’s much cause to celebrate an agreement that breaks down silos, opens up markets, and hopefully saves lives.