Google to get healthcare data access with Ascension partnership

Alphabet Inc’s Google has signed its biggest cloud computing customer in healthcare to date, in a deal giving it access to datasets that could help it tune potentially lucrative artificial intelligence (AI) tools.

Google and Ascension, which operates 150 hospitals and more than 50 senior living facilities across the United States, said the healthcare provider would move some data and analytics tools in its facilities to Google’s servers.

The deal was mentioned in Google’s July earnings call, but drew scrutiny on Monday after the Wall Street Journal reported that Google would gain personal health-related information of millions of Americans across 21 states. The Journal reported that the data involved in the project includes lab results, doctor diagnoses and hospitalisation records, among other categories, and amounts to a complete health history, along with patient names and dates of birth.