Paging Dr. Google: How the Tech Giant Is Laying Claim to Health Data

https://www.wsj.com/articles/paging-dr-google-how-the-tech-giant-is-laying-claim-to-health-data-11578719700

by Bostonian • 7 years ago

103 77 7 years ago

utopian3• 7 years ago

Article is paywalled. If someone can see it: is the premise that Google is harvesting patient data for their own AI/ML healthcare projects' benefit? Or is this just cloud storage (Cerner putting objects in a bucket)? Or both...

jnetterf• 7 years ago

Cerner just wanted cloud storage. Google gave them a good offer, seemingly to harvest patient data for their own project.

You can use archive.is to read some paywalled content: http://archive.is/RcG5b

gordon_freeman• 7 years ago

As per the article: And then Cerner got skeptical of Google's real intent with its Cloud business model and went with AWS instead.

3xblah• 7 years ago

https://web.archive.org/web/20200111193123/https://www.wsj.c...

To remove AMP cruft:

    curl http://web.archive.org/web/20200111193123/https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/paging-dr-google-how-the-tech-giant-is-laying-claim-to-health-data-11578719700 \
    | sed -n '/./{/<p>By<.p>/,/<\/div>/p;/<title>/,/<\/title>/p;};/<p>By/!{/<p>/p;};/=.sub-head/p;/./{/<h1 /,/<.h1>/p;}' > a.html

   firefox file://a.html

hi5eyes• 7 years ago

how long until google shuts down their health service apps

outside1234• 7 years ago

probably right after GCP

Despegar• 7 years ago

As Google has moved to expand its data collection, some potential partners have been put off by what they viewed as the company’s aggressive maneuvers to acquire data without providing enough information on how it would be used.
Google pushed one medical-data manager not to share data with other companies, according to a person familiar with the pitch.
As part of its huge offer for Cerner, whose software is embedded in doctors’ offices in 30 countries, Google used its size to its advantage. Google Cloud executives offered that other arms of the conglomerate would buy unspecified other services from Cerner, people familiar with the matter say.
Cerner ultimately accepted a less generous offer from Amazon, in part because the company decided Amazon was more trustworthy on security, according to one of these people.
Existing players in the health-care data market also fear that the tech giant will gain too much power in their industry. Some hospital and technology executives say they declined deals with Google lest it become a future competitor.
“We could never pin down Google on what their true business model was,” says a Cerner executive involved in the discussions.

It seems like Google is using GCP as a venus fly trap and Cerner was right to avoid them. The lure is cheap bog standard cloud services, but only if you have a more all-encompassing partnership where your data helps them develop other Google products.

Reiterating what Google has told lawmakers and industry executives in private meetings over the past two months, Dr. Feinberg says he operates on a personal directive from Mr. Schmidt: “Don’t worry about making money.”

This quote is extremely telling in my opinion, and it's just classic Google. The most generous interpretation of this is that Google has altruistic motivations to make advances in health and they shouldn't worry about how to monetize whatever they build. That of course is completely absurd and extremely dangerous because that is exactly how Google slides into evil (evil is banal). The less generous interpretation is that Dr. Feinberg is only there to provide a sheen of health industry credibility (key opinion leader) and he has no actual ownership of Google's health business at all.

And judging by this paragraph, I'm leaning to the latter:

Outcry over the Ascension deal, including a federal inquiry and objections from patients, shocked executives inside Google, and opened fissures in its top ranks over how to proceed, according to people with knowledge of the discussions. The head of Google Health, Dr. Feinberg, pushed to tell the public more about his division’s operations, but met resistance from longtime staffers who cite the company’s tradition of keeping potential new products under wraps.

carapace4• 7 years ago

In re: “Don’t worry about making money.”:

They're sitting in a firehose of cashflow. They waste more in a day than most people earn in a lifetime. I was working as a contractor there and the Occam's Razor hypothesis I formed to account for the massive waste I saw was that they have so much money that they can afford to sequester talent. (Meaning, they can hire a bunch of people just to keep them from working for competitors.)

I know that's not true, but it's less upsetting than admitting they're just that wasteful.

Infinitesimus2• 7 years ago

Meaning, they can hire a bunch of people just to keep them from working for competitors.

I think that's pretty true and partly explains why they respond so well to competing offers from other tech companies when you're negotiating salary

titzer2• 7 years ago

The most generous interpretation of this is that Google has altruistic motivations to make advances in health and they shouldn't worry about how to monetize whatever they build.

You either make money from your users or off your users.

deadmutex5• 7 years ago

You either make money from your users or off your users.

I encourage you to have a broader perspective, since this statement isn't true.

E.g. let's examine what Dr Feinberg (who current leads Google Health), oversaw at his last job (see link below).

tl;dr - They gave free food to some people with diabetes, which was better and cheaper than giving them drugs. This was not just free PR, etc.

https://www.hcinnovationgroup.com/population-health-manageme...

sharcerer4• 7 years ago

Result of not focussing on trust enough. Google is going to have more of this problem. Google really has a problem understanding the compound effects of trust and perception and dealing with it. By now, they should have taken some concrete privacy enhancing steps which might be made for short-term but good for long term trust, as usage of GCP, G Suite, AR will depend a lot on their trust factor. Sundar is really coming off as weak in this regard.

deadmutex5• 7 years ago

I think they have taken privacy enhancing steps, though public perception isn't easy to change. A lot of people (including HN users) still mistakenly think that Google sells user data, or medical history is being used for ads, etc.

Disclosure: I work at Google, but my opinion is my own.

sharcerer4• 7 years ago

Yeah. I know they have, enhancing Permissions in Android, making data deletion etc more visible. And I don't think they sell data. Personally, as a student I think they've provided incredible positive value to my life. But I wonder how GCP, Google Health will gain big customers because Google has clearly abused their power in certain areas.

bitL• 7 years ago

That might be true now, but who knows where your current employer will be in 10 years and if they by then even remotely match your current values. We are already seeing cracks forming and it makes difficult to trust them with our most sensitive data. It was easier 10-15 years ago, not so much these days.

rvz• 7 years ago

Cerner ultimately accepted a less generous offer from Amazon, in part because the company decided Amazon was more trustworthy on security, according to one of these people.

Well I don't know if even going with Amazon would be any better than going with Google since both of them will be prominent players in healthcare technology anytime soon. But it is more than clear that as Google obtains more health data via hospitals contracts, GCP customers, etc this helps their deep-learning systems learn more about you and despite releasing interesting papers about their achievements, they have closed up some of their methods which limits reproducible science and research.

Think very carefully about the sensitivity of this health data. Do we really want the likes of Google and Amazon analyzing this data for commercial purposes and later getting away with it? I neither trust that Amazon or Google will act in the best interests of whats good for healthcare, but I guess Cerner chose the lesser of two evils and went with a weaker devil.

rb808• 7 years ago

I can't read it but sounds like a good thing. Its always a waste to see our smartest developers working on social media or advertising. Hopefully the teams at Google can improve our healthcare which would be one of the most rewarding things they could work on.

saagarjha3• 7 years ago

It would be a shame if that data ended up being used for advertising, though.

deadmutex5• 7 years ago

From the article:

"The company says its intentions in health are unconnected with its advertising business".

I posted this exact comment elsewhere in the thread. You can search for a discussion on this page around it.

shrike• 7 years ago

Assuming Google has access to patient PII would this data be covered by the CCPA (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Consumer_Privacy_Ac...)? I couldn't find a Health Data option at https://takeout.google.com.

JMTQp8lwXL2• 7 years ago

De-anonymzed (health) data likely isn't covered by HIPAA, and with a few still generic data points likely associated with the health data, such as health, gender, age, and location -- you could work backwards to reach an identity. There's likely a loophole for whole security of health data thing.

pgodzin• 7 years ago

Did you mean de-identified instead of de-anonymzed?

shreyshrey• 7 years ago

ASFAIK, CCPA doesn’t cover data that comes under HIPAA Regulations.

Check 1798.145. Section 3 https://hq.services/blog/ccpa-full-text-with-amendments/

drevil-v2• 7 years ago

I find it disingenuous that the article refers to Google as a “tech giant”. The implications are far more sinister if instead it was referred to as “advertising giant” as advertising is what is what is driving Google to acquire this data.

Call it for what it is.

deadmutex5• 7 years ago

From the article:

"The company says its intentions in health are unconnected with its advertising business".

obmelvin2• 7 years ago

Exactly. There is so much money to be made from healthcare service, it is a market & revenue stream totally separate from advertising, and it can provide great value to many people.

There are things one could be critical of regarding their acquisition of data, etc. but I don't think it is in Google's best interest to use the data for advertising.

judge20202• 7 years ago

Google is really trying to diversify revenue since they know global web-based advertising regulation is coming (see YT Premium, YT TV, Google Store products, Fi), I can see this being purely a way to enter the healthcare software business.

jnordwick4• 7 years ago

>> Yet he is reluctant to allow people to opt out of Google’s core health-search tool. He likens that to a physician knowingly offering substandard care, he says.
>> “If you believe me that all we are doing is organizing that information to make it easier for your doctor, I’m going to get a little paternalistic here: I’m never going to let that get opted out,” Dr. Feinberg says. “It’s going to screw up your treatment. We’re not going to be able to take care of you.”

Planet Money had an interview with Dr. Feinberg, the head of the Google health initiative. He was asked about people potentially opting out. His response was extremely paternalistic.

He said that he views everybody in the system as his patients, and he thinks this data aggregation and analysis from Google will improve care. So as "our" doctor he cannot morally allow any of his his patients to withdraw themselves from the program because, to him, that would be akin to giving you inferior care.

So this guy gets to unilaterally appoint himself as our doctor? I certainly didn't hire him.

>> He boasts about his $5 Wal-Mart fleece jacket, and is an astrology enthusiast. “I’m positive,” Dr. Feinberg says to a reporter good naturedly, if inaccurately, “you’re Sagittarius.”

He's also heavily into astrology and was asking the interviewer his sign and trying to guess it. I certainly would never hire a doctor that was into astrology. How can I fire this guy?

How TF do you become a doctor that believes in astrology?

titzer2• 7 years ago

"Our mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful."

This is how you appoint yourself lord of all things.

carapace4• 7 years ago

Planet Money had an interview with Dr. Feinberg

Got a link?

jnordwick4• 7 years ago

I can't find it, sorry.

jnordwick4• 7 years ago

Found it! I was mistaken. It was the "The Journal" podcast:

https://www.wsj.com/podcasts/the-journal/why-google-is-pushi...

selimthegrim• 7 years ago

My dad’s a physician that believes in homeopathy because his religious guru wrote a book about it. He also listens to Eckhart Tolle. I hope they’re not connected.

tortasaur• 7 years ago

Doctors aren't superhuman and med school doesn't filter out the gullible.

neuro_image3• 7 years ago

Well we've given google everything else, we may as well give them all our healthcare information too.

So glad our corporate surveillance masters are teaming up to infiltrate every aspect of our existence.

jocoda• 7 years ago

Rather say that google _took_ everything else. Few realized the value of what was up for grabs at the time but by making life easy for web developers with g-analytics google created a firehose of user data. By using g-analytics we gave the web away.

Where is this firehose of health data is going to lead to?

Paging Dr. Google: How the Tech Giant Is Laying Claim to Health Data

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