The range of assumptions made in this write up are “astounding”. The only criticism of Google Health with Ascension is in the “legality”. They conveniently forget that the onslaught of privacy issues was well before the healthcare.
Android devices are “digital sentinels” beaming every aspect of the life of their owners.
IBM Watson is the trojan that would lead the company to bankruptcy. It’s their secret sauce of oblivion.
The only criticism in this entire post is related to the legality of the “tie-up”. No one has ever done any analysis of the outcomes of the product. Will it be limited to Ascension? Will this technology be offered to other healthcare providers? How does Google intend to benefit out of this? How is the personal information going to be handled?
The challenge is that accomplishing these innovative uses of electronic data requires a range of informatics, analytics, and research skills that most health systems don’t possesses. One logical approach is for health care organizations like Ascension to partner with third parties that have the necessary capabilities. That’s where Google comes in. It has IT skills — including in the field of artificial intelligence — that Ascension can never hope to equal. And Google has been gobbling up nationally renowned clinician leaders and researchers to create a deep bench in health-care informatics and research.
In this, Google is not alone. IBM Watson has been in this field for some time. Amazon and Apple seem to be following suit. And there are a flock of start-ups hunting for opportunities to add value to health care by mining patient data. When health care, which accounts for 18% of the U.S. economy, suddenly enters the digital age — bringing almost inconceivably large stores of untapped data — the business opportunities are huge. Google is reportedly not charging Ascension for its services, but that is likely because of the exploratory nature of the work that Google will be doing at this point in the developing arena of health care informatics. Future customers are unlikely to be so fortunate.
via Why Google’s Move into Patient Information Is a Big Deal
RadOncNotes 