In addition to partnering with Celgene  CELG -0.79%  to better track negative drug side effects, IBM  IBM -0.33% is applying its cognitive computing AI technology to recommend cancer treatment in rural areas in the U.S., India, and China, where there is a dearth of oncologists, said Deborah DiSanzo, general manager for IBM Watson Health.

For example, IBM Watson could read a patient's electronic medical record, analyze imagery of the cancer, and even look at gene sequencing of the tumor to figure out the optimal treatment plan for a particular person, she said. [...]

"The human is wrong so freaking often, it's a massacre," said [Jonathan Bush] co-founder of Athenahealth, which sells cloud-based electronic health records software to hospitals and doctors' offices. "Nobody ever goes after the radiologist--they're wrong so often we don't blame 'em."

While less enthusiastic about artificial intelligence's current contributions to healthcare, Bush suggested a perhaps more radical vision of the future, in which machines do indeed supplant many rudimentary medical functions. "Forget brain scans and cancer silhouettes--what about plain film and broken bones? Wouldn't Watson be a lot more reliable with that?" he asked rhetorically. "And isn't that billions and billions of dollars of some radiologist looking at it and saying, 'Yup, that's a broken bone?'"