UK NHS to Provide Google’s DeepMind Access to Patient Data Under Data Sharing Agreement

Google’s DeepMind subsidiary and the U.K. National Health Service have signed an agreement that would allow DeepMind to gain access to healthcare information of approximately 1.6 million patients of three Royal Free NHS Trust-run hospitals in London, New Scientist reported Friday.

Hal Hodson writes the data sharing agreement between NHS and Google’s artificial intelligence firm includes access to information related to drug overdoses, HIV and other patient data over the last five years.

Royal Free NHS Trust told New Scientist in a statement that it “provides DeepMind with NHS patient data in accordance with strict information governance rules and for the purpose of direct clinical care only.”

The agreement also covers the development of the Patient Rescue platform that will work to provide NHS hospital trusts with data analytics support as well as the Streams application designed to help hospital personnel track patients with kidney disease, according to a copy of the agreement obtained by New Scientist.

DeepMind will also gain access to data stored in NHS’ central database – Secondary User Service – for all treatments in U.K. hospitals, the report said.

Hodson reports the agreement calls for DeepMind to employ a third-party organization to store the data in the U.K. and delete all copies of information once the transaction expires by September 2017.