Google and Ascension’s ‘Secret’ Partnership Sparks Widespread Controversy
A recent bombshell report released by the Wall Street Journal pulled back the curtain on the highly secret ‘Project Nightingale,’ which is a current partnership between Google and Ascension – one of the largest nonprofit health systems in the U.S.
According to the WSJ, the project began in secret sometime last year when Ascension began sharing its vast patient data – including complete health histories, patient names and dates of birth – with up to 150 Google employees.
The aftermath.
The WSJ report immediately went viral (or, as viral as a healthcare article could get). In an almost immediate response, Google issued a press release the same afternoon detailing its partnership with Ascension, stating that the business relationship is legal within HIPAA confines and has good intentions.
Ascension also released a statement, saying that the goals of the partnership are to improve patient outcomes and data usage.
That’s not stopping the Feds from opening an official probe into the partnership, though.
The 2 Sides of the Google and Ascension Controversy.
After doing a LOT of reading and research on this, there are essentially 2 schools of thought behind the Google and Ascension partnership.
Google and Ascension’s Side:
Google’s work with Ascension and its patient data is allowed by law because Google is defined as an Ascension business partner. Additionally, the data is hosted within an Ascension-owned virtual private space within the Google Cloud platform – separate from Google’s other business functions.
Per the agreement, none of the patient data will be used to sell ads or be monetized.
With Ascension’s help, Google is trying to find solutions to healthcare’s biggest problems. Those problems include common provider headaches like the lack of interoperability between patient medical records, advancing practical uses of artificial intelligence, and developing new technologies to leverage data for the purpose of achieving better clinical outcomes for patients.
In the long run, despite how it looks now, this partnership will be good for healthcare.
The Patient Privacy Side:
The optics surrounding the partnership don’t look good for Google and Ascension. Although the partnership started last year, nothing (beyond one word in Google’s second quarter 2019 earnings call) was mentioned about what was going on behind the scenes.
Ascension employees expressed concern about how the patient data was being shared with Google, yet nothing was addressed. And yet, as soon as the WSJ article was released, Google immediately sent out a press release.
Since Google is allegedly doing the work with Ascension for free, they clearly think that the project has extremely high value.
But no patient or provider was told how their individual, highly sensitive patient data was being used by a company with a not-so-great track record of handling consumer data.
The Washington Post detailed a failed partnership between Google and the NIH, where Google almost publicly posted 100,000 x-rays with patient data
These types of partnerships need more oversight.
Read about the controversy from the whistleblower’s perspective themselves on the Guardian here. It definitely highlights all of the relevant issues.
Maybe Google and Ascension didn’t handle the partnership in a transparent way. But that doesn’t mean they had deviant or malicious intents behind their arrangement.
Patient Privacy backlash.
There’s been plenty of response to the Google-Ascension ongoing story. As is the case with ANY big story, there’s been plenty of news coverage. People – me included – are starting to ask the question: “what’s really going on behind the scenes?”
Read Google’s response to the controversy.
It turns out our health data might not be as secure (WSJ paywall) as we think.
Even consumer-focused DNA test kits might threaten the privacy of children in ways we haven’t even considered.
Finally, IT execs are calling for a HIPAA overhaul. Given today’s current tech environment, most people think that better HIPAA guidelines are long overdue.
Novartis and Microsoft Partner on Artificial Intelligence in Drug Development
An A.I. Innovation Lab.
It doesn’t get more buzz-wordy than that. This week, Novartis (a huge pharma company) and Microsoft (you know what Microsoft is) announced a strategic collaboration to advance artificial intelligence’s role in drug design and creation.
The Deets.
The multi-year partnership will build joint research activities and “A.I. innovation labs” with the hopes of developing personalized therapies specifically focused on macular degeneration (ophthalmology is big $$$), cell and gene therapy (often thought of as the next frontier in drug development), and overall drug design. This alliance is just the latest example of the transforming life sciences industry.
One Medical Hires Bankers, Progyny Files for IPO, and an Update on Digital Health IPOs this year.
One Medical hires its bankers, eyes IPO in early 2020.
Yet another “digital” healthcare company has aspirations for the public markets. One Medical, which is essentially a high-tech urgent care platform with about 70 locations, has hired bankers (wimps – go for the direct listing) and is planning an IPO for early 2020. Notably, One Medical’s largest investor is Google, which might earn the company some cred on the ‘ole Street.
A Tech company, or just a healthcare services company with a splash of tech?
They’re gonna need every morsel of that credibility for public investors to look past a company that seemingly just operates as a primary care platform. It will be interesting to see what the company includes in its initial prospectus and roadshow to win institutional investors before any IPO – especially since primary care services typically command lower profit margins and subsequent low multiples.
Progyny, a fertility benefits company, files to go public.
In other IPO news, Progyny, which manages fertility type benefits at companies, just filed to go public. Fertility has been a hot market for private investment, so it’s interesting timing for a fertility player to exit to the public markets. The fertility firm claims to give employees better pregnancy outcomes as compared to the fertility industry’s average pregnancy rates.
Read Progyny’s S-1 Prospectus here.
Digital Health IPO performance woes.
One Medical and Progyny might face a tough time in the public markets given the current slaughter happening to IPOs. Livongo, Health Catalyst, Change Healthcare, Phreesia, Peloton, and SmileDirectClub all went public earlier this year. All but one are down over 10% as of this writing. Most of that might be due to overall volatility in the markets, but the optimal time to IPO – especially for digital health companies – may well be in the past.
Attack of the Drones: UPS Unveils Medical Drone Delivery Platform with Key Partners already Lined Up
Parcel Wars: Attack of the…wait for it…Drones.
UPS has been pretttttty busy this month. Earlier in October, UPS received approval to operate drones commercially – the first approval ever in the U.S. Now, in this week’s futuristic story, UPS announced its plans to deliver supplies and other things via ~DRONE~. Yeah, that means giant 4-rotor mechanisms flying in the sky to your local community hospital. Keep your curtains closed.
Okay, not quite to that level yet – but UPS does have major partnerships lined up with big-time players, including CVS, Kaiser Permanente, AmerisourceBergen, and others. The drones will carry things like prescriptions, medical supplies and instruments, and pharmaceuticals to hospitals and customers’ homes.
Remember the March pilot program?
UPS had a pilot program running with its first partner, WakeMed Health, earlier this year (yeah, I definitely reported on that story when it came out – see, I really do keep you guys in the loop!).
That program apparently went really well – cutting delivery time for lab samples from 19 to 3 minutes – so it only makes sense for UPS to expand the program further and diversify that revenue stream.
Uber integrates with Cerner to allow patients to have easier transportation to appointments
Give the driver 5 stars. Millennials don’t tip, though (allegedly).
Last week, Uber Health and Cerner, the largest (I think?) electronic health records company announced their plans to integrate in order to give patients easier access to their appointments.
How it works.
It’s actually pretty cool and a neat partnership. Providers using Cerner will be able to schedule an Uber directly from Cerner’s portal for their patients. Once that happens, the Uber driver will receive that patient’s info so that they don’t pick up the wrong person.
The bigger picture.
People miss appointments all the time for a host of reasons, but now it looks like it’s going to be easier for those with transportation struggles to make their appointments and hopefully receive better care because of it.
Amazon’s Voice-to-Text Transcription Service
In one of the less-sexy but completely-essential health tech products announced this week, Amazon unveiled a software called Transcribe Medical. The software will (hopefully) free up a ton of doctor time by transcribing doctor notes accurately. As we’ve all heard, administrative tasks and electronic health records are a huge cause of burnout among physicians, and this product addresses that. Kudos, Amazon.
Competitive Nature.
Interestingly, Amazon is only making this software available to clients who use Amazon Web Services. You think Bezos is blind to competition? The bigger picture here is Amazon trying to snag those lucrative cloud deals with large health systems by making a compelling product.
Kroger & Best Buy Each Expand their Healthcare Initiatives
Kroger expands new health care initiative – Kroger 360care
Grocery chain Kroger has launched a healthcare initiative that allows hospitals to use its stores to expand care offerings to patients, according to the Cincinnati Business Courier. The grocery chain appears to be targeting a similar healthcare strategy to Walmart: helping patients to access lower-cost healthcare.
Best Buy’s Home Care Plans.
In other news, Best Buy is continuing its push into the digital health space. Did you know they’ve already invested $1 billion in healthcare ventures? They’re targeting the geriatric (senior) market through easy to use medical devices and mobile equipment. It’s a pretty unique play that fits nicely into their already-lucrative Geek Squad offering.
Apple designs a hospital.
Take a look inside Apple’s innovative new hospital re-design with Stanford Health. The focus is on the small details here – using robots for bedside manner, and A.I. to predict trouble.
What’s new with the Amazon-Berkshire-JP Morgan venture, Haven?
Piloting new healthcare programs.
After laying low for a while, Haven has taken the scene once again. This time around, the Amazon/Berkshire/JP Morgan venture is piloting a variety of health plans for certain employees among the three companies. The plans involve heavy access to primary care and looks like a host of other generous healthcare features in the plans.
Read more about the pilot program here.
Digital Assistant Notable Lands a Huge Deal with CommonSpirit Health
Digital assistants not named Alexa are making headway into physician clinics. The latest assistant, named Notable, just inked a MAJOR deal with CommonSpirit Health, the newly merged nonprofit giant formerly known as Dignity and Catholic Health Initiatives.
The Big Picture.
The tech world seems to think that digital assistants, particularly voice-to-text capabilities for transcribing electronic health records, has a big future in healthcare. With Alexa and the British NHS, Notable and CommonSpirit, and Suki with Ascension, it looks like the digital assistant land grab is just getting started. Hopefully, the digital assistants lead to less administrative time and less physician burnout.
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