Google, Mayo Clinic Announce Partnership to 'Redefine' Healthcare

The Mayo Clinic and Google have announced a 10-year agreement to integrate their respective data and health expertise to "redefine how healthcare is delivered," reports Politico Pro . Mayo's Steve Peters said the deal includes efforts to develop machine learning models to boost treatment precision and effectiveness, with anticipated innovations that lower provider and administrative burdens. Google CEO Sundar Pichai explained that the alliance offers "an extraordinary opportunity to develop services that will significantly improve lives." Under the agreement, Google Cloud will secure, supervise, and store Mayo Clinic's data, giving Epic database users at Mayo an opportunity to crunch numbers for more accurate medical care and research. Neither partner has revealed how the knowledge gained from this effort will be commercialized. Peters suggested potential applications such as a machine learning algorithm licensed to other healthcare systems. Google will open an office for its engineers at Mayo's headquarters in Rochester, Minn. However, skepticism is ripe, with Scripps Research's Eric Topol stating that "there is no institution or cloud platform or tech titan that 'will redefine how healthcare is delivered.'"