What is the secret project that Google is working on?

What is the secret project that Google is working on?

Google is participating in a secret project with one of the largest care systems in the United States to collect and collect detailed personal health information for millions of Americans in 21 states, a Wall Street Journal report said Monday, citing an informed source.

The initiative, dubbed Project Nightingale, appears to be the largest in a series of efforts by Silicon Valley giants to access personal health data and establish a foothold in the huge healthcare industry. Companies such as Amazon, Apple and Microsoft are actively providing healthcare, although they have not yet done so.

According to the newspaper, the documents showed that Google began efforts last year with Ascension - based in St. Louis - the second largest health system in the United States, and then began to exchange data between the two companies accelerated since the summer.

Data participating in Project Nightingale includes laboratory results, doctor's diagnoses, and hospital records, among other categories, up to a complete health record, including patient names, and birth dates.

According to someone familiar with the matter and the documents, patients or doctors were not notified. The project already allows at least 150 Google employees to access much of the data for tens of millions of patients.

According to sources, some Ascension staff also asked questions about how data is collected and shared, both technically and ethically. But privacy experts said it appeared to be allowed under federal law. The Health Insurance and Accountability Act of 1996 generally allows hospitals to share data with business partners without informing patients, as long as the information is used “only to assist the covered entity in carrying out health care functions”.

In this case, Google uses the data, in part, to design a new program, based on advanced artificial intelligence and machine learning, that works on individual patients to propose changes in their care. Google employees have access to patient information, according to documents, including some Google Brain employees: the research science department that attributes some of the company's biggest achievements.

A Google spokeswoman for the Wall Street Journal: The project is fully compliant with the federal health law and includes strong protection of patient data. Google and Ascension are believed to be financially motivated. Google has hired dozens of engineers for Project Nightingale so far, without charging for work, because it hopes to use the framework to sell products similar to other health systems. The ultimate goal is to create a comprehensive search tool to collect and host different patient data in one place, the documents show.

The project is being developed under the Google Cloud division - which rivals similar divisions with Amazon and Microsoft in market share. Google chief executive Sundar Pichai has said more than once this year that creating new cloud growth areas is a priority. Ascension - a chain of about 2,600 hospitals, medical offices and other facilities - is partly aimed at improving patient care. It also hopes to extract data to identify additional tests that may be necessary or other ways in which the system can generate more revenue from patients. The company is also looking for a faster system than the current decentralized electronic record-keeping network.