Company Offers $3 Million for an Algorithm That Predicts Whether You'll Get Sick

This would be worth a LOT more then $3 million to health care companies... the ability to see that your going to need hospitalization is a great excuse to boost the cost of service right now. Like it isn't bad enough as it is...

Sounds like "Minority report" for meds

and of course, big hospitals may abuse such an algorithm, as well as life insurance companies.

It simply would be a way to sift through potential clients, rejecting the "future ill".

It would be great if they provided test data so I can teach my predictive algorithm how to learn. This will be a cake walk. Easiest $3 million dollars I've never made.

Pioneer10 said: "It simply would be a way to sift through potential clients, rejecting the "future ill"."

What I forsee is that if insurance companies have access to this they will offer a 'basic' policy that covers you for everything that you are not predisposed for, and more expensive policies for anything you're likely to get according to this algorithm. Perhaps costing more per percentage likelyhood?

Two points -
1. 3 mill would be chump change compared to the worth of this app -- even if it was used beningnly as they are suggesting

2. Why does the headline say 15 years while the text discusses a single year.

And when will they be able to say that the algorithm works. I mean really works, on patients, not on selected past records.
In 15 years? Or more?
Otherwise they couldn't tell how accurate the algorithm is on healthy patients and if the algorithm worths the 3million.
Somehow the movie Gattaca comes to my mind...

Do programmers and other non-health related people have access to anonymous health data? or this is gonna promote health data insecurity even further? I agree with concerns regarding the misuse potential of this algorithm, it has to be kept in mind. On the other hand if it is reliable it can be very useful in disease prevention.

It is all the matter of legislation. In my country, health insurance companies cannot screen you this way. They must insure anyone, or they or out of business. Health insurance is mandatory in my country and it is counte as fixed a percentage of the salary. But health insurance companies are private.

This would be near impossible. there are waaaaay too many factors. have they ever heard of chaos theory??

I would love to help these people out but my price range would be in the billions not millions.
Jg16477 said that it would be nearly impossible, not really.
As a matter of fact, predictive algorithm can possibly be predetermined just by genetic characteristics even before a person is born.
I‘ll give you a clue on an example, everyone has a twin, a look-a-like, not a biological twin at birth but a genetically identical twin.
Oddly whenever twins come together, they exhibit the same characteristics in viewpoints, clothing style, likes and dislikes and even physical ailments, etc.
And this happens when in total isolation from each other and in never meeting.
Genetically are the reasons that whenever you see someone familiar looking they remind you of someone that you know.
The most daunting task and maybe a near impossibility to an accurate predictive algorithm will be the collecting of information and a compilation of the data.