Does a good system have the potential to be good for patients? Sure. Will Google do that? Probably not. There's no incentive for them to improve health care for the patients; there's no profit. There is, however, profit in ads, and in increasing insurance margins for insurers and those funding insurance.
I'd like to think that Google is concerned about more than just profit, but they prove again (censored search for China) and again (YouTube policy changes) and again that they are not. Profit rules Google's decisions.
And that is why there's such backlash against Google getting this data. Because the chances of anything good for us as patients is slim to non-existent.
> There's no incentive for them to improve health care for the patients
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.
I hadn't heard of ACOs before. Those seem to be some pretty awesome organizations; it does a lot to temper my frustration at the handover of this data.
Do we have any assurances that Google's efforts will be limited to improving care? Or are they being compensated by being able to use that data in other opportunities?
I'm pretty confident they are 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 the research process years ago. 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.
And there is nothing wrong about monetary profit as motivation, the pursuit of profits has elevated the living standards of billions around the world saving countless lives.
The pure pursuit of profit has also created sweatshops, blood diamonds, monopolies (and increased consumer costs), and union busting.
Profit itself is a dangerous motivation. Profit tempered by morals is what will improve lives. Google is showing that their drive for profits is not being tempered by morals.
I'd like to think that Google is concerned about more than just profit, but they prove again (censored search for China) and again (YouTube policy changes) and again that they are not. Profit rules Google's decisions.
And that is why there's such backlash against Google getting this data. Because the chances of anything good for us as patients is slim to non-existent.