The author is spot on - the current approach of applying ML to flawed and inconsistent data is doomed. However, on the bright side, I think they also highlight

The author is spot on - the current approach of applying ML to flawed and inconsistent data is doomed. However, on the bright side, I think they also highlight a possible path for data scientists to bring value to healthcare. All of the examples of relationships and correlations were spurious, but if you keep digging you will eventually unearth interesting relationships. A minority of these relationships will be useful for improving hospital administration. Examining the relationships might not necessarily improve health outcomes but there is a real chance to make hospitals more efficient using data science.