Google consolidates DeepMind Health under Google Health

DeepMind founders Mustafa Suleyman, Demis Hassabis, and
Shane Legg.
DeepMind

• Google set up a new healthcare unit called Google
  Health last week, and appointed healthcare executive David
  Feinberg to lead it.
• Google Health will fold in the healthcare arm from its
  British artificial intelligence lab DeepMind.
• DeepMind’s healthcare unit produced Streams, an app to
  improve patient healthcare. But that app did not use
  AI. 

Google is moving quickly to reorganise its efforts in healthcare,
creating a new unit called Google Health and folding in the
healthcare arm from its DeepMind AI subsidiary.

DeepMind Health will become part of Google Health. The
reorganisation
comes just four days after Google announced it was hiring
big-name healthcare CEO David Feinberg to head up its healthcare
initiatives.

The company’s founders, Mustafa Suleyman and Demis
Hassabis, wrote in a
blog post that the change was a “major milestone” for the
unit, and that it would mean DeepMind’s Streams app, which aims
to improve patient care, would be put into practice. Notably,
Streams is not itself AI-powered. 

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The founders wrote wrote: “It’s been a phenomenal journey to see
Streams go from initial idea to live deployment, and to hear how
it’s helped change the lives of patients and the nurses and
doctors who treat them.

“The arrival of world-leading health expert Dr. David Feinberg at
Google will accelerate these efforts, helping to make a
difference to the lives of millions of patients around the
world.”

The move may cause some consternation.

Streams was at the centre of some controversy in 2017 when
the UK’s
data watchdog ruled that a British hospital hadn’t taken enough
care when sharing patient data with DeepMind early in the
app’s development. The watchdog did not stop DeepMind from
continuing to use or develop Streams. But privacy campaigners
worry that DeepMind’s ultimate parent firm Google, whose core
business model relies on data, may try and suck up patient
information to benefit its bottom line.

DeepMind had set up an independent board to probe its approach to
privacy and its business model, in part to address those
concerns. A spokeswoman confirmed the board was unlikely to
continue after the consolidation.

Streams isn’t the only product from DeepMind’s healthcare team,
which also has various research projects underway such as the use
of
artificial intelligence to detect eye disease, and
planning cancer radiotherapy treatment. Suleyman said the
team behind Streams would remain in London and report to the
DeepMind health team’s clinical lead, Dominic King.

DeepMind said it was still committed to its existing partnerships
and research projects with UK hospitals. “Information governance
and safety remain our top priorities,” the founders wrote.
“Patient data remains under our partners’ strict control, and all
decisions about its use will continue to lie with them.”

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