We founded DeepMind to solve intelligence and use it to make the world a better place by developing technologies that help address some of society's toughest challenges. It was clear to us that we should focus on healthcare because it’s an area where we believe we can make a real difference to people’s lives across the world.

We're starting in the UK, where the National Health Service is hugely important to our team. The NHS helped bring many of us into the world, and has looked after our loved ones when they've most needed help. We want to see the NHS thrive, and to ensure that its talented clinicians get the tools and support they need to continue providing world-class care.

Frontline nurses, doctors and other healthcare professionals who spend their days treating patients know better than anyone what's needed to provide outstanding care. We at DeepMind Health aim to support clinicians by providing the technical expertise needed to build and scale technologies that help them provide the best possible care to their patients.

The Future

While projects like Hark and AKI detection are in their early stages, the problems they solve are fundamental to the NHS. The hope is that these tools can help shift more resources away from reaction and towards better prevention. Ultimately the aim is to give nurses and doctors more time to focus on what’s most important.

These past few months have given us a glimpse of what’s possible. As we continue to explore what nurses and doctors need, and work with them to design and scale new and better tools, we will remain guided by the following principles:

• Valuing clinician and patient expertise: Nurses, doctors and patients are the experts — we can help by building tools that support them. Everything we do will be driven by the needs and insights of those involved in frontline care. From identifying challenges, to co-designing solutions, to oversight and governance, clinicians and patients will lead us every step of the way.
  
• Stand behind the National Health Service: We are proud supporters of the NHS and believe in the core principle that healthcare should be universally available and free at the point of use. DeepMind Health’s work will support and strengthen the delivery of exemplary care in the NHS.
  
• Build technologies that work together: Effective healthcare technologies must work well with existing systems while supporting further innovation by clinicians and technologists. We will develop open and interoperable technology while absolutely protecting the confidentiality of patient data. This ensures that the benefits of innovation are widely shared.

The world’s toughest problems become more tractable when diverse teams of leading practitioners work together in partnership. Building world-class technologies that support clinicians is one of the most important things we can do, and DeepMind Health is our promise to do just that.