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from the all-the-better-to-sell-ads-to-you-with dept.
Google has access to detailed health records on tens of millions of Americans
Google quietly partnered last year with Ascension—the country's second-largest health system—and has since gained access to detailed medical records on tens of millions of Americans, according to a November 11 report by The Wall Street Journal.
The endeavor, code-named "Project Nightingale," has enabled at least 150 Google employees to see patient health information, which includes diagnoses, laboratory test results, hospitalization records, and other data, according to internal documents and the newspaper's sources. In all, the data amounts to complete medical records, WSJ notes, and contains patient names and birth dates.
The move is the latest by Google to get a grip on the sprawling health industry. At the start of the month, Google announced a deal to buy Fitbit, prompting concerns over what it will do with all the sensitive health data amassed from the popular wearables. Today's news will likely spur more concern over health privacy issues.
Neither Google nor Ascension has notified patients or doctors about the data sharing. Ascension—a Catholic, non-profit health system—includes 34,000 providers who see patients at more than 2,600 hospitals, doctor offices, and other facilities across 21 states and the District of Columbia.
[...] Both Google and Ascension said that the project is compliant with federal health information privacy protections and is "underpinned by a robust data security and protection effort."
Health privacy experts told WSJ that the project appears to be legal under the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA). As the newspaper notes, the law "generally allows hospitals to share data with business partners without telling patients, as long as the information is used 'only to help the covered entity carry out its health care functions.'"
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Wednesday November 13 2019, @12:01AM (3 children)
If anyone's cloud, braintrust, codebase, and information selection and categorization experience can mine a dataset that size to pull out something that will help people, Google is a good shot to do it.
I'm ok with them overlaying annual dosage graphs on my personalized Cialis-Viagra-rhino-horn ads if they could mine and finely predict serious or emergency healthcare needs across time/space/demographics axes -- that's a tradeoff I'm willing to accept.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Wednesday November 13 2019, @01:21AM (2 children)
I reject any justification for the advertising industry, for starters. I reject the advertising industry's presumption that it is somehow "entitled" to data of any sort. And, I seriously object to any idea that they should be able to project the health care needs of any individual.
What I see is a livestock ranch, where every aspect of an animal's life is carefully documented in pursuit of profit. Every penny spent on an animal is carefully budgeted, right up until the animal is slaughtered for it's meat, fur, bones, and everything except it's squeal. While I may have been a prized stud at one point in my life, I refuse to be sent to the glue factory in my old age.
(Score: 3, Touché) by c0lo on Wednesday November 13 2019, @01:51AM (1 child)
They aren't monetizing the squeal yet?
Now, it smell like a business opportunity here! (grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Wednesday November 13 2019, @11:45PM
Apparently it's been a long-term problem [pork.org].