- Amazon, Microsoft, and Palantir have signed on to help create an interactive coronavirus response dashboard for Britain’s National Health Service (NHS).
- The dashboard will pool data from the NHS and its partners and help healthcare workers make decisions about allocating resources.
- The deal throws up privacy concerns, as the NHS will be sharing sensitive health data with the companies.
The digital wing of Britain’s National Health Service, NHSX, is teaming up with three US tech companies to help co-ordinate its response to the coronavirus.
UK health secretary Matt Hancock is due to sign a deal with Amazon, Microsoft, and Palantir, as well as London-based firm Faculty AI, the BBC reports.
Business Insider has contacted all four companies and the NHS for comment.
According to the BBC the companies will collaborate to create an interactive digital dashboard which pulls in hoards of data from the NHS and its partners, including:
- How many ventilators are being used and where.
- Staff sickness.
- Number of available and occupied general beds, specialist beds, and critical beds in hospitals.
- A&E department capacity.
- How long COVID-19 patients stay in the hospital.
This information could in turn be used to make decisions about resource allocation.
“Every hospital is going to be thinking: Have we got enough ventilators? Well we need to keep ours because who knows what’s going to happen — and that might not be the optimal allocation of ventilators,” a source at one of the tech companies told the BBC.
www.businessinsider.com/amazon-microsoft-palantir-nhs-coronavirus-2020-3