A milestone for DeepMind Health and Streams

In November we announced a groundbreaking five year partnership with the Royal Free London to deploy and expand on Streams, our secure clinical app that aims to improve care by getting the right information to the right clinician at the right time.

The first version of Streams has now been deployed at the Royal Free and we’re delighted that the early feedback from nurses, doctors and patients has so far been really positive. Some of the nurses using Streams at the hospital estimate that the app is saving them up to two hours per day, giving them more time to spend with patients in need. And we’re starting to hear the first stories of patients whose conditions were picked up and acted on faster thanks to Streams alerts. Patients like Afia Ahmed, who was seen more quickly thanks to the instant alerts. You can read more about the deployment and some of the early positive signs over on the Royal Free’s website.

Of course, these are only early indicators, and a full service evaluation will be carried out over the coming months to measure the overall impact that Streams is having. But for all of us who have worked on this for the past eighteen months, from concept to development to testing to deployment, it’s an exciting milestone and an indication of what can be achieved when the UK’s clinicians, patients and technologists work together.

We’ve always believed in the combination of cutting-edge technology with a focus on real practicality. If we want to maximise the clinical and social benefits of advanced health technology, then it can’t be developed in labs disconnected from the hospital frontlines - it has to be informed and guided by amazing people who give and receive care every single day.

This focus on practical benefit will continue to shape our work as we expand the use of Streams, carry out machine learning research into conditions that affect millions of people, and support our hospital partners to provide faster and safer care.