Google to Store and Analyze Millions of Health Records

Let me extend a word of sympathy to US consumers for the miseries they have to go through with their hospital industry and medical lobby. Not only do other countries provide pretty good care for about 1/5 of the cost, they also have some basic privacy laws on patient records.

Excellent article! On a purely scientific note this is a great advancement in outcome/ treatment analyses and could be of great value to the delivery of effective treatment plans. My skeptical side says these companies will most likely use this advance more for their benefit than the public at large.

Enjoyed the article, but I was surprised that you did not reference longstanding NY state requirement for opt-in patient consent for HIE (health information exchange). NY has one of the most robust sets of community-based HIEs that have functioned under opt-in for more than a decade. Ascension and Google are exchanging data and should be accountable. https://www.healthit.gov/topic/patient-consent-electronic-health-information-exchange Todd Rowland MD

Well this is a step in a scary “1984” direction. Suppose I had been a patient at the local University of Chicago Medical Center from 2009-2016, and I had paid the co-payment with a credit card. Now suppose that was the same credit card used for grocery shopping. So now google can connect my complete medical record at University of Chicago with my frequent purchase of Honey Nut Cheerios. So next time I check out with Honey Nut Cheerios, my health insurance premium automatically increases. Sound far fetched? It’s already here, and it’s a clear violation of HIPPA, and the complete end of my privacy. This kind of data sharing cannot be allowed. This lawsuit against Google and University of Chicago is extremely important to everyone. We must fight the coming of the “1984” prisoner world. A world where everything we do or buy is subject to being known, analyzed, and utilized to control our lives. Our very liberty is at stake.

Truthfully this is likely a step in the right direction. My last job was for a medical tech company providing Provider Search and Cost Search (among other services) for all the big health insurance companies. The single biggest problem was that all the data was full of holes and had ENORMOUS amounts of mistakes. I'm talking five or six duplicates of locations and doctors, missing or wrong phone numbers, Accepting Patient Data set to false when it should be true, on and on. In addition none of the locations (hospitals, offices etc) had any profile pictures, none of the doctors had pictures of themselves, there were missing certifications and formatting errors galore. When the data is already a mess, and you are required to fill out a form with a pen whenever you visit an office like it's 1969, and the first question you are asked at the hospital is how will you be paying for this, ANYTHING to try to analyze the data and for God's sake FIX some of it is a step in the right direction.

Google and Mr Trump just ensured health care cost will be available to only the rich. While at the same time personal information will be tracked and exploited over peoples lifetimes.

Funny to see this article today after reading another slamming the EPA for requiring raw data before accepting conclusions made by scientists paid to come to a conclusion (or because of their bias, coming to a conclusion). Raw data is critical, and HHS collects it routinely. Now Google will have your data (they already have some). Why? Because as Dems move towards Medicare for all, there are billions to make in healthcare - Medicare for all means the government guarantees payment. Why can no one see how healthcare has been destroyed in the last 12 years; actually started in the early 90s with HMO regulations from Hillary's influence over Congress when her husband was president. Maddening!! Google should not be allowed in healthcare. And insurance companies should never be allowed to own any healthcare services whatsoever.

Here's an article from the Guardian with more information on this topic. https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/nov/12/google-medical-data-project-nightingale-secret-transfer-us-health-information Comprehensive and personally identifiable patient data is being transferred over with no warning or consent from either doctors or patients. To people living in the UK (which includes me), what do you think a Johnson government will do with our NHS data (which is extremely valuable) once we leave the EU and their data protection laws?

All the headlines about impeachment and political fighting and, then, this. THIS is the big story. It will live on for decades past when Trump will be gone, as in not alive any longer, even if he tips over from old age at 100. Google will have information so detailed on individuals that the NSA will be green with envy. This information will never go away. If you have submitted your DNA to companies like 23 And Me or other "ancestor" tracking outfits, if you have got a personal fitness tracker attached to the Internet, if you let your phone provide your location as you move around, if you go to the doctor and the results of your exams and tests are uploaded to a database controlled by companies like Google - the list goes on - you no longer live an individual life. You are a hamster on a wheel being inspected by people in lab coats. You are hamster number X14213D. Attached to that ID will be your real name, your DOB, your complete DNA record, your pre-disposal to certain types of disease based on your gene sequence that they will also have and people you will never meet will set about making life-affecting decisions about you, your finances, your ability to get insurance and how you will be allowed to live. Just by writing this comment, I have opened up several different ways someone can rack up more information on me. If you think this is science fiction, we're past that now. You are too late if you are only thinking about any of this lately. They own you and us.

Google makes money by selling ads - clicks are everything. Now it's branching out into medical records? But not to sell ads based on those records? Or not to sell the records themselves? Sales of private data are huge moneypots. We're supposed to expect that Google doesn't see money in medical records? That Google doesn't read HIPAA and see money? It should be a no-brainer that a company like Google is NOT one to be trusted with personal medical histories. What this story is missing is the Ascension whistleblower who posted a video reporting on the secret transfer of Ascencion's records to Google. Yes, secret - no notice to patients or their doctors. https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7nvz43

Please the lest trust-able tech company in the world Google motto of "do no good when their is a buck to be made" should be a concern to everyone, the tech and media companies are too big and should all be broken up

The U.S. government has been somewhere between complicit, silent, and moribund on big tech hoovering up everyone's data and monetizing it. D.C. is a disgrace when it comes to regulating tech and preserving privacy, dignity, or anything else the tech companies can make money by ending. I already get ads that are highly suspect of violating my medical history privacy, the last thing I want is for Google to get into the act. The company needs to be torn brick from brick and buried in the sand. It's "Don't do evil" mantra is a horrible joke, and its AI research directors, if you've ever had the experience of seeing them talk in conference, are certifiable.

The researchers at Google Brain and Google Health (Medical Brain) are really doing some cutting edge stuff. It's really easy to portray everything that big tech does as bad, but the criticism shouldn't be given here. The research that Google is doing here is going to save tons of lives, period.

I’m all for the streamlining of patient records as far as improving accessibility to medical providers, BUT I don’t trust Google or the other behemoths to stick to these lofty “plans.” Insurers, being the crafty foxes they are, I’m sure are just thrilled with all and any future aspects of this, and are just waiting to pounce.

How long before insurance companies get access and use the data to deny coverage or boost coverage costs? Grace Hopper: it’s better to seek forgiveness than to ask for permission. (Close, if not exact.) FB And their endless apologies after the damage is done comes to mind. Acting in good faith is no longer a ‘thing’.

Awhile back, while I was in school, I had a temporary job in the offices of a health insurer. I entered data into the system, took phone requests, filed mountains of folders holding records of dozens of people I knew -- with all the bruises, broken bones, pregnancy terminations, allergies, mental health interventions, etc., which I had plenty of time to read, had I cared to. I'd hardly believe that putting all that in the Google Cloud would make the slightest difference.

Be skeptical but look at the state of your own medical records. Could you compile your own records seamlessly in an emergency? How many errors can be avoided due to incomplete or illegible information? Make no mistake, we are light years behind other countries when it comes to steam-lining medical records. Time to embrace progress like it or not.

Apart from the privacy concerns is the fact that most of this will be useless. Data gathered in this manner tends to be grossly inaccurate.

Notice the Google spokesman carefully does not address the question raised by the lawsuit: does it have enough data to reconstruct the patients' identities?

Big Tech, Big Pharma, and Big Brother all rolled into one. What could possibly go wrong?