- Change theme
Google To Use Medical Records?
Google’s DeepMind to use medical records in an attempt to solve some of the world’s biggest health problems.
18:25 20 July 2016
Google has tied up with London MoorFields Eye Hospital to have access to one million eye scans to train its artificial intelligence system to diagnose potential sight issues. This can then lead to the development of an app that can help doctors spot kidney disease.
Although the project has been welcomed by some doctors, privacy groups and some patients are concerned that their data can be shared with the tech giant’s AI division.
Mustafa Suleyman, DeepMind co-founder, said: "I can completely understand why there was surprise about what we were doing. We have learned a lot and there is a lot we can do to improve - we take that feedback,"
In February, Google struck a deal with three hospitals run by London’s Royal Free Trust that aims to develop an app, called Streams, that would notify doctors should someone be at risk of developing acute kidney injury using healthcare data of up to 1.6 million patients.
Mr Suleyman explained that the project is a part of their vision to make the world a better place. "We looked at nano-materials, synthetic biology, renewable energy, transport trying to figure out how tech could make a difference and I realised that healthcare - it we could get it right - then the margin for beneficial impact was enormous."