Google's Machine Learning Looks to Improve Predictions in Health Care

The same machine learning technology Google uses to anticipate the next word in a search query is in tests to advance predictive modeling in health care, and the tech giant is teaming up with three universities this year to research its ability to do so. Katherine Chou, head of product for Google's efforts in machine learning for health, has been working on using machine learning for preventive care since 2015, when health care systems reached out to Google for help. Part of the breakthrough now is that "our deep learning technology is finally mature enough to handle the unstructured data that you see in the records," she says. An example of unstructured data is pictures and notes from a physician or nurse that make up the majority of an electronic health record. Google's machine learning can now include those data in a predictive modeling algorithm.