Scrutiny of Google’s Access to Patient Data Intensifies

On Nov. 11, Google and Ascension announced a partnership that they say is designed to improve patient care.

St. Louis-based Ascension, a Catholic health system with more than 2,600 care facilities, including 150 hospitals, is migrating its on-premises data warehouse and analytics infrastructure to a Google cloud environment; using Google G productivity tools for Ascension employees to communicate and collaborate in real time; and implementing Google’s artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies to support improvements in clinical quality and patient safety.

As part of that arrangement, Ascension reportedly is providing Google access to the health information of 50 million patients in 20 states and the District of Columbia without their permission.