Google Health ties up data agreements with NHS trusts

The transition of NHS trusts’ data commitments finalises the transfer of DeepMind’s health team to Google, which was announced in November 2018. It includes agreements relating to Streams, a machine learning system that can detect the early signs of acute kidney failure. The app is currently being used by Royal Free and Imperial College, both of which insisted they would retain control over patient data after transferring their agreements to Google Health. Royal Free will additionally be migrating to Google’s cloud infrastructure “to further improve resilience” and allow it to extend the use of Streams to Barnet Hospital. A statement from the trust read: “Moving to the GCP (Google Cloud Platform) will mean Streams can benefit more patients and support the increasing number of clinicians using the app. All migration and implementation will be completed to the highest standards of security and will be compliant with relevant data protection legislation and NHS information governance requirements.