The challenge of data: How big-tech wants to “solve it”

Big Tech jockeys for position in scramble for health data primacy | Financial Times

By one estimate, 30 per cent of the world’s total data volume is generated by the healthcare industry, offering detailed insights into who — and how — we are. And the volume of healthcare data will, according to this research from RBC Capital Markets, grow much faster than the data generated by the manufacturing, finance and entertainment industries

Another write up from FT, and this time they claim collected data (without mentioning specific variables) will require big-tech to “solve this” and mine information to provide results. I won’t be surprised if they start claiming it will help people live a longer and healthier life. At a more cynical level, if you stay healthy and continue to work, you have to pay more taxes!

Bad jokes apart, big-tech wants to make data interoperable:

The attractions for tech companies are clear: they see data interoperability as core to their strategy of supplying tools for healthcare providers, since it lowers the barriers to running a broad range of apps and services. It has led to wide adoption of a data standard, the Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources, or Fhir, with engineers from leading tech companies taking part in development events that shape how data can become interoperable between health systems.

My real worry is here:

Microsoft has used its cloud platform, Azure, to host apps that are Fhir-compliant for data entry, cleaning and analysing. Last April, the company announced an agreement to acquire voice tech company Nuance in a deal worth $16bn, giving it powerful natural language-processing capabilities, such as enabling a doctor’s discussion of symptoms to be logged and analysed.

emphasis mine

The real challenges are regulation. Azure doesn’t tick any right boxes, but it remains a distant third, and no one cares about Microsoft’s AI modelling. Yet, they remain entrenched in the enterprise ecosystems (and I am using Windows 11). We interact with the products once in a while, almost everyday. It will only allow their marketing team to “cross-sell” from one vertical to another.

Everyone wants to be the gatekeeper and cover their tracks through “non-profits” and “working for the humanity”. Please don’t be misled by these lofty PR statements. It is only to serve a specific set of investors.