Google's DeepMind artificial intelligence program is swapping video game controllers for a stethoscope.
The company this week announced the launch of DeepMind Health, a new clinician-led technology that aims to "make a real difference in people's lives across the world."
Starting in the U.K., home to London-based DeepMind, Google will work with the National Health Service (NHS) to provide doctors and nurses with high-tech solutions to patient problems.
Past technology implementations, the company said, were typically NHS-wide deployments that don't always align with clinical needs. DeepMind, however, intends to work with local physicians to co-develop new programs.
Google this week introduced two of those programs: smartphone apps Streams and Hark.
Piloted at the Royal Free Hospital London, Streams presents real-time information to help detect cases of acute kidney injury. Though preventable in about 25 percent of cases, AKI is responsible for up to 20 percent of emergency hospital admissions and 40,000 deaths in the UK every year.
"Using Streams meant I was able to review blood tests for patients at risk of AKI within seconds of them becoming available," Dr. Chris Laing, one of the app designers, said in a statement. "I intervened earlier and was able to improve the care of over half the patients Streams identified in our pilot studies."
Hark, meanwhile, is an early stage clinical task management app created by Professor Ara Darzi and Dr. Dominic King of Imperial College London. A pager, notepad, and fax machine in one, Hark helps keep clinicians organized during a busy day at the hospital.
Early pilots found that doctors and nurses respond 37 percent faster with Hark than traditional pagers.
Healthcare can be a slippery slope for new technology: Developers must ensure patient data is handled with care, protected, and kept secure at all times. To that end, Google promised NHS information will be stored in the UK, never linked with Google accounts, and processed by DeepMind Health only.
The company also set up a group of unpaid independent reviewers, set to meet four times a year to scrutinize the AI's work with the NHS, and issue an annual public report of their findings.
"We want to see the NHS thrive and we believe that by listening to and being led by clinicians themselves, we can deliver groundbreaking technology," the DeepMind Health website said. "Our hope is that through a focus on patient outcomes, effective oversight, and the highest ethical principles, we can achieve great results for the NHS and everyone who depends on it."
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