In fact, according to Bourque, Google would have to anonymize the information before it could be used to develop machine learning models it can sell in other contexts. Under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, better known as HIPAA, patient records and other medical details can be used “only to help the covered entity carry out its healthcare functions.” A major aspect of the work involves designing a health platform for Ascension that can suggest individualized treatment plans, tests, and procedures. Google says it is operating as a business associate of Ascension, an arrangement that can grant it identifiable health information, but with legal limitations. The bulk of the work is being done under Google’s Cloud division, which has been developing AI-based services for medical providers.
The project, which reportedly began last year, includes sharing the personal health data of tens of millions of unsuspecting patients. On Monday, The Wall Street Journal reported details on Project Nightingale, Google’s under-the-radar partnership with Ascension, the nation’s second-largest health system.
But it turns out there’s a cheaper way to get access to it: Teaming up with health care providers. It’s no secret that Google’s parent, Alphabet-along with fellow giants Apple and Facebook-is on an aggressive hunt for health data. Last week, when Google gobbled up Fitbit in a $2.1 billion acquisition, the talk was mostly about what the company would do with all that wrist-jingling and power-walking data.
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