Google is working on a top secret project to gathers millions of Americans’ health data

Google is working on a top secret project to gathers millions of Americans’ health data across 21 states including lab tests and diagnoses – but patients and doctors have not been told about it

  • Google has teamed up with Ascension, a leading healthcare services company, for Project Nightingale
  • Already, around 150 Google employees have accessed people’s health data 
  • They are able to see diagnoses, test results and hospitalization records 
  • They are striving to use the data to inform design on a new, AI-led product 
  • It will ‘zero in’ on patients to allow them to make easy changes to their care 
  • Google said the project is totally compliant with laws, which allow for people’s medical data to be shared without them knowing  

Google is working on a top secret project with a leading healthcare company to gather millions of Americans’ health data without them knowing it. 

The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday that the company has teamed up with Ascension, the second largest healthcare services company in the country, for a project that is being code-named Nightingale. 

It will gather patients’ test results, diagnoses and hospitalizations to give them a full digital health history. 

Google is working on a top secret project with a leading healthcare company to gather millions of Americans’ health data without them knowing it

Neither doctors nor the patients in the 21 states where it will be used have been told about it. 

As many as 150 Google employees have already seen some people’s data, it is reported. 

They have voiced concerns over the way it has been harvested, despite it being legal. 

According to the Journal’s report, Google is using the information to inform new design software that will rely heavily on artificial intelligence. 

Its purpose will be to ‘zero in on individual patients to suggest changes to their care.’

A Google spokesperson said the project is legal. Ascension has not commented. 

Google did not immediately respond when asked specifically by DailyMail.com how the data will be used or why the company did not inform patients or doctors about it being accessed.

The practice is legal under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 which allows hospitals to share patients’ medical data with business partners on the condition that it is used to ‘help the entity carry out its healthcare functions.’   

Read more at DailyMail.co.uk