DeepMind, Google's artificial intelligence division, has been awarded access to the healthcare data of up to 1.6 million patients from three hospitals run by a major London NHS trust. The data will be used to develop an early warning system for patients at risk of acute kidney injuries. However, the move has raised questions about the necessity of all patients' data in developing such a specific app.
The data sharing agreement empowers DeepMind accessing into all patients' data from the Royal Free, Barnet and Chase Farm hospitals in London. The app developer is also allowed to analyze data over the past five years and will continue receiving until 2017. DeepMind aims to develop an app known as Streams, capable of alerting doctors about someone's possible acute kidney injury (AKI), reports BBC.
Royal Free Trust, controlling authority for the three hospitals, informs that Google employees won't be able to identify anyone from the encrypted data. Under the same agreement, DeepMind will also get access into information about HIV-positive people, details of drug overdoses, abortions and others from the past five years. DeepMind has been developing software in collaboration with NHS hospitals to alert staff to patients at risk of deterioration and death through kidney failure, reports The Guardian quoting its announcement in February.
The upcoming smart-phone based app technology has gained support from Lord Darzi, a surgeon and former health minister. Mr. Darzi is also a director of the Institute of Global Health Innovation at Imperial College in London. Google hasn't ruled out the possibility for using the data for other purposes. However, the Silicon-Valley giant pledges to apply the agreement only for improving healthcare and not for commercial purposes. However, consequences for this move are frightening since the data may be used for other purposes too, warns The Telegraph quoting Phil Booth, coordinator of patient data campaign group MedConfidential. Referring the data as the most confidential information of individuals, Joyce Robins from Patient Concern comments that many will be horrified with its sharing idea. He, however, expresses concern over the fact that hospitals seek software to identify illness instead of depending on doctors. Leak of HIV patients' identities during last year has mounted fears for putting NHS records into a central database. A sexual health clinic has allegedly circulated names and email addresses of 780 such patients at that time.
