In 2016 the Royal Free London entered into a partnership with DeepMind Health to develop Streams, a secure instant alert app which delivers improved care for patients by getting the right data to the right clinician at the right time. Similar to a breaking news alert on a mobile phone, the technology notifies nurses and doctors immediately when test results show a patient is at risk of acute kidney injury, and provides all the clinical information they need to take action.
In 2018, it was announced that DeepMind’s teams working on Streams would transition to Google Health UK. Following months of careful consideration, we have now transferred our agreements from DeepMind Technologies to Google Health UK. This updated partnership will allow us to draw on Google’s resources and expertise to extend the benefits which innovations like Streams offers to more of our clinicians and patients.
To enable us to extend the use of Streams from the Royal Free Hospital to Barnet Hospital we will also be transitioning to the Google Cloud Platform (GCP) infrastructure to further improve its resilience.
Moving to the GCP 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.
As with all of our arrangements with third parties, the Royal Free London remains the data controller in relation to all personal data. This means we retain control over that personal data at all times and are responsible for deciding how that data is used for the benefit of patient care.
