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This is a compilation and revision of my comments nested deeper in the thread. Let's start from the absurdum argument that was posed: > There's no incentive fo

This is a compilation and revision of my comments nested deeper in the thread. Let's start from the absurdum argument that was posed: > There's no incentive for them [Google] to improve health care for the patients Ignoring the fact that Google is staffed by humans, and humans have a deep visceral response to engaging in healthcare, the healthcare systems they are collaborating with (e.g. Mayo) are strongly motivated to improve health of their patients, particularly in capitated models like accountable care organizations. Mayo is actually pretty famous for adopting the ACO model. Note the author on this article (1) from Mayo Clinic Proceedings is by David Shulkin, who went on to become the Secretary of Veterans Affairs. You may also be interested to know Ascension is another ACO (2). So why would an ACO be motivated to work with Google? Because they know reducing diagnostic variance is almost certainly identical to improving quality of diagnosis, which will reduce poor outcomes and reduce malpractice, cost of overtreatment, cost of undertreatment, and so on. Further, let me present evidence that I believe indicates Google Health is going to be laser-focused on improving care and will actively shed any work that doesn't advance that goal. Not only their business actions, but also their leadership choices. In terms of business actions, lets look at the NHS brew-haha. Hard to blame Google for NHS screwing up the research protocol that led to the specific 1.6M patient records being transferred to Deep Mind. And they corrected that research process years ago. Do you really think Google wants to be seen anywhere near the mishandling of private information? That presents an existential risk to their business. They passed muster with Mayo (a deal that no doubt had to pass muster with Shulkin among other world-renown physicians and administrators). They have deals with McKesson, Cleveland Clinic, and now Ascension. These are major players. Their leadership choices give you additional insight on their motives. Their new Chief Health Officer is Karen DeSalvo, former National Coordinator for Health IT and Acting Assistant Secretary of HHS (and no doubt candidate for next Secretary of HHS). David Feinberg, their new VP for Health, is coming from serving as CEO of Geisinger and UCLA prior to that. These people are reputationally allergic to mixing medicine with adtech. Finally, keep in mind that healthcare is widely regarded as one of the weakest points in Western cyber security. Bringing in grown-ups sounds like a phenomenal move to me. Would it be nice if the company's core business wasn't adtech? I suppose. But for all the reasons above, I genuinely believe Google getting into this space is a better net outcome than the status quo. (1) https://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/article/S0025-6196(12)00565-4/abstract https://www.mayoclinicproceedings.org/article/S0025-6196(12)... (2) https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/acos-to-know-2019.html https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/acos-to-know-2019.html

the-rc 7y ago
> They passed muster with Mayo (a deal that no doubt had to pass muster with Shulkin among other world-renown physicians and administrators I used to work at both Mayo and Google. Mayo isn't shy about the need to protect their name and reputation. They consider it one of their most valuable assets, if not the most valuable. After all, they built it over a century of hard work. Sometimes it borders on excessive. If you went to a conference, unless you were presenting, it was suggested for you to just say you're "from a large medical institution in the Midwest". If you sold them software or services, you were allowed to use their name (trademark) in the list of customers on your website, but only if the list had at least 4-5 names and it was in alphabetical order. The day Mayo signed, also in light of their past collaboration with IBM (I was around in the BlueGene days...), I knew that Google must have committed large amounts of money and resources to the partnership. For those who are not aware, Dr Plummer at Mayo pretty much came up with the modern idea of a medical record a century ago and even had a sort of human-powered Google for records, keeping them in the basement, calling them up over intercom and delivering them over tubes.

the-rc 7y ago

> They passed muster with Mayo (a deal that no doubt had to pass muster with Shulkin among other world-renown physicians and administrators I used to work at both Mayo and Google. Mayo isn't shy about the need to protect their name and reputation. They consider it one of their most valuable assets, if not the most valuable. After all, they built it over a century of hard work. Sometimes it borders on excessive. If you went to a conference, unless you were presenting, it was suggested for you to just say you're "from a large medical institution in the Midwest". If you sold them software or services, you were allowed to use their name (trademark) in the list of customers on your website, but only if the list had at least 4-5 names and it was in alphabetical order. The day Mayo signed, also in light of their past collaboration with IBM (I was around in the BlueGene days...), I knew that Google must have committed large amounts of money and resources to the partnership. For those who are not aware, Dr Plummer at Mayo pretty much came up with the modern idea of a medical record a century ago and even had a sort of human-powered Google for records, keeping them in the basement, calling them up over intercom and delivering them over tubes.