Decision Mechanics

Insight. Applied.

UK’s National Health Service loses data—old skool

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Over half a million UK National Health Service (NHS) records went missing between 2011 and 2016.

When I first skimmed the headline, I was thinking “Another data breach…[yawn].” But, turns out it was all paper. 500,000 paper records went missing.

A private mail direction company sent the records to a warehouse. They had either been incorrectly addressed or the associated patients had moved surgery. Unfortunately, the records—including test results for serious illnesses—were abandoned at that point.

A review is underway to decide whether any patients died due to the missing documents.

You can see how databases are overlooked—the information is pretty abstract. But, a mountain of 708,000 documents (there were administrative documents as well)?! Who walked by that every day without asking questions?

DeepMind has access to data on millions of NHS patients

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DeepMind, the Google-owned AI company, has an agreement with the Royal Free NHS Trust that gives it access to healthcare data on 1.6 million patients who visit three London hospitals. The agreement includes access to five years of historical data.

The company is building an application to help monitor patients with kidney disease.

While it will be interesting to see what DeepMind can produce with such comprehensive data, the National Health Service sharing identifiable healthcare information with a commercial entity is sure to raise privacy concerns.