- Google announced it has partnered with Ascension to store and analyze the healthcare of millions of patients to improve medical services
Google has been making some aggressive moves to penetrate further into the healthcare market. On the heels of acquiring Fitbit, Google also partnered with Ascension — the second-largest hospital system — in order to store and analyze the healthcare data of millions of patients with a goal of improving medical services.
Ascension runs 150 hospitals across 20 states and the District of Columbia. As part of the agreement, the data of all Ascension patients may be uploaded to the Google Cloud platform.
This is not the first arrangement that Google Cloud has made with a hospital system. Google Cloud has similar partnerships with Cleveland Clinic and Hunterdon Healthcare. Plus Google Cloud also works with the American Cancer Society, Mckesson, Colorado Center for Personalized Medicine, and the RAD-AID International and Lao Friends Hospital for Children.
Tariq Shaukat, the president of Industry Product and Solutions at Google Cloud, pointed out that the partnership with Ascension will focus on 3 key areas. Google Cloud will work with Ascension by shifting its infrastructure to the cloud, set up G Suite productivity tools across Ascension sites of care, and extend tools to doctors and nurses to improve care.
Google and Ascension are also testing software that would enable medical providers to search a patient’s electronic health record (EHR) based on data categories and create visualizations of information such as blood results over time. This would give medical professionals better insights into patient care and treatment.
“All of Google’s work with Ascension adheres to industry-wide regulations (including HIPAA) regarding patient data, and come with strict guidance on data privacy, security and usage. We have a Business Associate Agreement (BAA) with Ascension, which governs access to Protected Health Information (PHI) for the purpose of helping providers support patient care,” said Shaukat in a blog post. “This is standard practice in healthcare, as patient data is frequently managed in electronic systems that nurses and doctors widely use to deliver patient care. To be clear: under this arrangement, Ascension’s data cannot be used for any other purpose than for providing these services we’re offering under the agreement, and patient data cannot and will not be combined with any Google consumer data.”
