Nowadays, Google is the most important part of everyone’s life. Millions of people around the globe use google in their day-to-day activities. Google was introduced in late September 1998 and by 2006 it had infiltrated various cultures and languages. Today, Google stands in the market with a big share of 88.65% and is one of the dominant search engines around the world.
Back in 2006, Google slowly started to explore potential business opportunities in the healthcare sector. This led to the development of Google Health Care. Later, Apple launched a health records section in its health care app. This lets people pull their health care records from hospitals and clinics directly onto their iPhones.
The initial Google health care plan was to create a repository and store health records. This data would provide direct connections between doctors, hospitals, and pharmacies. But, the project failed to gain success and was shut down in 2012. This has led many people to worry about apple google healthcare data privacy and protection.
Google Trend of Big Data in Healthcare
With the initial goal of Health Care being unsuccessful, the company started a google trend of big data in healthcare 2018. In 2018, the company partnered with a Catholic hospital system that is operating in 21 states. With this partnership, a new Google health care plan emerged to develop an EHR tool. This EHR tool would allow clinicians to search for data within patient records.
But when the Google Health Care partnership with the hospital was made public in late 2019, it stirred a great deal of concern among the people. Later, this deal was followed by various questions by the legislators and legal experts enquiring whether it violated the privacy laws and confidentiality agreements. As there are plenty of hacking database cases, these issues cannot be overstated.
This is not the first time Google has been criticized for failing to protect user and data privacy. Previously, Google was blamed for a user data leak in their Google+ networking website. Most of the concerns that were raised against this deal focused on the patient policy. According to the hospital, Google Health Care did not inform them regarding the distribution of the medical records of their patients.
Further, the patients never provided any consent for sharing their medical history. Many doubts were raised regarding the security of the agreement and few concerned individuals had questioned what precautions have been put in place to protect the patients.
The lack of transparency between Google and Ascension created the biggest ethical challenge between the partnership. Some people did not believe that Google Health Care will use the collected PHI to cure disease or improve the healthcare industry. The matter further escalated when the patients were not able to refuse the involvement if they did not want their information shared.
Google Hooking Up With Health Care Data
On May 26, this year, Google and HCA Healthcare announced a data-sharing partnership. HCA Healthcare is a national hospital chain in the United States. This partnership will provide Google Health Care with access to a host of patient records and real-time medical information.
Google has a dark history of leaking the personal data of its users especially during the google trend of big data in healthcare 2018. The HCA agreement will put a large amount of new patient data into Google HealthCare. Some of the patients have already pointed out how similar the HCA agreement for data-sharing looks to Google-Ascension’s Project Nightingale.
However, the new HCA deal poses a threat to personal consumer’s health data. Ever since the deal was first announced, many in America have been victims of rising ransomware crime. Many people believe that the data privacy laws have taken a back seat to the fight against ransomware attacks, and consumers around the world are being left to fend for themselves.
Privacy concerts do not just include the stolen data that could potentially harm patients and consumers. But it is also tied up around a few of the simple realities. This includes how individuals feel as though they have no say in how their data is acquired, stored, and used by entities. Especially those that have not been meaningfully consented to share their information.
According to various surveys and research, it has been found that consumers feel powerless in the age of big data. Various factors like little control over the personal information collected on them and concerns over user privacy while using free online websites like Facebook and Google. In short, consumers do not believe they have much of a say when it comes to their data privacy. Sadly, most of the time they are found to be right.
Despite the potential benefits, the main concerns of the users combined with a major and growing amount of data theft make the agreement between the two companies unwise. The data that Google will have access to will be incognito and secured through the company’s large Cloud infrastructure.
But, it will be stored without the consent of patients, who’s deeply personal information is in question. Even if the information is kept secret by the company, for many users this initiative is deeply troubling, no matter the potential health benefits. As the Google – HCA agreement takes away the patients’ control over access to their information in such a manner.
Final Word
Even though having digital HealthCare is a good initiative. But apple google healthcare data often overlooks the privacy concerns. It is high time for these companies to prioritize the privacy of the public. They should further recognize the growing threat to autonomy represented by the aggregation and sharing of a large amount of data. Google Health Care should find a balance between innovation and the privacy of its users.
While it is true that many hospitals may be able to improve care with a raft of new information. However, leaders in these fields and the public need to start questioning the information collected. Especially how the data is acquired and how it will be used.
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