Big data's blueprint for better healthcare

Big data is fast revolutionising healthcare, but the industry is only just waking up to the accompanying threats to patients' privacy.

Within a few years databases of millions of patients' DNA data or clinical information are expected to play a much bigger role in helping clinicians diagnose disease.

Last week a firm at the heart of this push, Swiss-based Sophia Genetics, completed fundraising to fuel growth from a database of 125000 genomes to one million by 2020.

Its partner hospitals across Europe share patients' DNA data in return for access to Sophia's data-mining systems, which can identify the genetic patterns behind hereditary diseases such as cystic fibrosis and certain types of cancer and heart conditions.

For the tech gurus, scientists and investors leading the charge into big data, Sophia - which stresses the data supplied to it are anonymised - is part of a sea change in the way we fight illness, as we move from a reliance on chaotic paper records stuffed in doctors' filing cabinets to powerful, searchable global information systems. However, for privacy campaigners it's part of a "Big Brother" moment for healthcare, by which patients' sacrosanct information becomes a commodity traded between healthcare providers and commercial entities.

"This is not just some sort of generic privacy concern," says Phil Booth of campaign group MedConfidential. "It's about confidentiality. There's a necessity for it. It's at the heart of the doctor-patient relationship and the whole health system relies on it.''

Dr Jurgi Camblong, founder and chief executive of Sophia, says his firm could ultimately map the genomes of 50 million cancer patients alone a year, helping identify the genetic traits that contribute to the disease.

He hopes more data-sharing will lead to behavioural change in healthcare provision.

"My father was sick and for my mother it was a nightmare," he says. "He had repeated MRI scans in different hospitals because they each couldn't access the data. That's a terrible use of healthcare funds.

"We need to break down these silos. It's not a tech problem; it's a mentality concern."

It's not just pharmaceutical firms joining the data rush. Big tech companies have also made clear their intention to move into healthcare, including Google and Apple.

Google's sister life sciences company, Verily, is ploughing money into European health ventures, including a bioelectronic medicine tie-up with drugs firm GSK.

Apple unveiled an extension of the health- monitoring capabilities of its third-generation iWatch products this week. The company said it is now working with Stanford University and US medicines agencies to develop iWatch tests for heart arrhythmias.

Reports have already credited the product with saving lives, with cases of people being alerted to dangerous jumps in their heart rate and seeking vital medical help in the nick of time.

- The Daily Telegraph