Type of site | Health Technology, Personal health record, AI |
---|---|
Owner | |
URL | health |
Commercial | Yes |
Launched | May 20, 2008 |
Google Scholar |
Google Health was a project by Google designed as an attempt to create a repository of health records and data (personal health record services) in order to connect doctors, hospitals and pharmacies directly. The project was introduced in 2008 and discontinued in 2012. Google Health was restarted in 2018, but appeared to be discontinued in 2021 [1] and was officially called an "effort" rather than a separate division as of 2022. [2]
Google Health was the name given to a 2008–2012 version of a service, which allowed Google users to volunteer their health records—either manually or by logging into their accounts at partnered health services providers—into the Google Health system, thereby merging potentially separate health records into one centralized Google Health profile. Volunteered information could include "health conditions, medications, allergies, and lab results". [3] Once entered, Google Health used the information to provide the user with a merged health record, information on conditions, and possible interactions between drugs, conditions, and allergies. [4] Google Health's API was based on a subset of the Continuity of Care Record. [5]
The original Google Health was under development from mid-2006, under ex-chief health strategist Roni Zeiger. [6] [7] In 2008, the service underwent a two-month pilot test with 1,600 patients of The Cleveland Clinic. [8] Starting on May 20, 2008, Google Health was released to the general public as a service in beta test stage. On September 15, 2010, Google updated Google Health with a new look and feel. [9]
On June 24, 2011, Google announced it was retiring Google Health on January 1, 2012; data was available for download through January 1, 2013. [10] [11] The reason Google gave for abandoning the project was the lack of widespread adoption. [12] In 2012, Roni Zeiger left Google. [6]
Google Health in 2018 was the name given to a team working within Google, rather than a service or application, following a similarly named web service in 2008–2012.
In 2018, during a process codenamed "Tuscany," teams across the company combined into the new Google Health group. This included artificial-intelligence research teams Google Brain and DeepMind, as well as health teams from Nest Labs, the connected-home company Google bought in 2014. [13] [14]
Starting in November 2018, David Feinberg was appointed lead. [15] In 2019, it was announced they wanted more searchable medical records and to "improve the quality of health-focused search results across Google and YouTube". [16] Google Health also appeared to focus on health-related artificial intelligence research, clinical tools, and partnerships for other healthcare tools and services. [17]
Later in 2018, Google reorganized their healthcare efforts, and as a result DeepMind Health became part of Google Health. [18] They began a non disclosed project called Project Nightingale, a partnership with Ascension, a large Catholic health care system in the United States. [19] [20] The project was headed by David Feinberg, hired in November 2018 and his oversight included Google Fit, health-oriented features in Google Search, G Suite for healthcare businesses, AI-based health research offerings, and Alphabet subsidiaries DeepMind Health, Verily, and Calico. [15] [16] At the 2019 HLTH health care conference, Feinberg announced Google Health is working on improvements with the search functions in electronic health records (EHR) and to improve health-related search results across their platforms. [16]
In 2020, there were four areas of focus:
In 2021, the imaging, diagnostics and research groups appeared to be consolidated as the Health AI group. [21]
Google Health reportedly struck up deals to work with large health systems such as Ascension and Stanford Medicine, but talks with other major health companies and organizations including CVS Health and the Gates Foundation had "fallen apart along the way". [22]
In February 2020, Google Health had more than 500 employees. [23] In August 2021, Google reorganized the health projects and teams.
In November 2019, Google announced plans to acquire Fitbit, [24] with the company adding that "Fitbit health and wellness data will not be used for Google ads." The European Data Protection Board voiced privacy concerns in February 2020 about mass aggregation of data. [25] In August 2020, EU regulators announced plans for an anticompetition probe into the deal. [26] The acquisition was completed in January 2021. [27] [28] Later in 2021, a portion of the consumer health efforts of Google Health were formally moved into the FitBit division. [21]
A personal health record app allowing users to rate their health records and share them with others appeared to be under development and real world testing in 2021. [29]
"A quarter of Google Health's life has been spent during the coronavirus pandemic, and it's helped focus its search ambitions, partnerships with health officials, and collaboration across the company," chief health officer Karen DeSalvo said in August 2020. [30] She described YouTube, Maps, Google Assistant, and Google search wanting to guide consumers on their healthcare experience, called the "Discovery to Action Pathway". This included searching for local testing sites, looking for doctors, and setting up an appointment. [31]
In April 2020, Julie Black, Director of Product Management for Google Health, announced virtual care entries on Google Maps for medical businesses. [32] [ non-primary source needed ] Searches for "immediate care" would also show widely-available virtual care platforms like Live Health Online, AmWell and Doctor on Demand.
In August 2020, Google announced an partnership with and investment in AmWell, a telemedicine company. [33] [ non-primary source needed ] The two companies aim to use their technology capabilities for TeleHealthcare including artificial intelligence and collaboration tools. Google Cloud will also invest $100 million in Amwell.
In 2020, Apple and Google announced changes to their operating systems that would enable exposure notification for users. Chief Health Officer Karen DeSalvo noted that privacy concerns had led to the approach using Bluetooth-based proximity signals rather than GPS location tracking. [34] In the UK, an NHS-developed app saw some adoption resulting in 1.7M exposure notifications. [35] However, as of 2022, adoption of apps using Apple and Google’s exposure notification system had never gone above single digits for most states in the U.S. [36]
Other countries had elected not to use the Google framework has opted for location tracking. Instead, some had special laws previously created for the public health emergency, allowing government use of location tracking and transaction databases by government authorities. In South Korea, authorities using cellphone location data had identified 60,000 people near a mass-exposure event in Itaewon. Affected individuals were notified, with some asked to self-quarantine, resulting in only 246 cases from the exposure. Privacy advocates expressed concern over the use of location data in this way. [37]
In late 2020, Google introduced a Google Health Studies app for Android phones, appearing to rival Apple’s ResearchKit and Research App. [38] The first studies on the Health Studies app focus on respiratory illness like COVID-19. [39] Google deployed federated learning in an effort to improve privacy and security in its Health Studies app. [40]
The Google Health Studies app was introduced amidst news that a competing Apple Research app had inadvertently collected more health data than requested. [41] The Apple study had unintentionally collected 30 days of additional data, which was not requested as part of the study. According to emails to study participants, extra data had reportedly been deleted and was never accessed by Apple. [42]
Google Health continues to operate today as a "company-wide effort" led by Google's Chief Health Officer, Karen DeSalvo. [43]
According to the company, "there is no "Google Healthcare" division or platform within Google today," although it is unclear why the company is remarking on "Healthcare" versus "Health" as an effort, brand, product, or organization. [44]
Another initiative officially described as "company-wide efforts" at Google is the Google News Initiative. [45]
At the same time, as of 2023, there have been reports of a platform offering that non-company partners have referred to publicly as "Google Health". In March 2023, the CEO of Meditech, an electronic health record company, referred to Google Health as a product with features including "search and summarization capabilities." [46]
Google Health's current partners include Apollo Hospitals, Aravind Eye Hospital, Ascension, CIDRZ, Mayo Clinic, Northwestern Medicine, Rajavithi Hospital, Sankara Nethralaya, and Stanford Medicine. [47]
The original Google Health (2008–2012), like many other Google products, was free to use for consumers. Unlike other Google services, however, Health contained no advertising. [48] Google did not reveal how it planned to make money with the service, but a Wall Street Journal article said that Google "hasn't ruled [advertising] out for the future." [49] Google filed in 2007, U.S. Patent Application #20070282632, "Method and apparatus for serving advertisements in an electronic medical record system". [50]
Google Health (from 2008 to 2012) imported medical and/or drug prescription information from the following partners: Allscripts, Anvita Health, The Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, The Cleveland Clinic, CVS Caremark, Drugs.com, Healthgrades, Longs Drugs, Medco Health Solutions, Quest Diagnostics, RxAmerica, and Walgreens. [51] [ non-primary source needed ] In January 2010, the Withings WiFi Body scale enables Google Health users to seamlessly update their weight and other data to their online profiles. [52] Users whose health records reside with other providers had to either manually enter their data or pay to have a Google Health partner perform the service. MediConnect Global was one such partner; for a fee, they would retrieve a user's medical records from around the world and add them to his or her profile.
In 2009, in response to demand for added convenience, Google Health began establishing relationships with tele-health providers that will allow their users to sync the data shared during tele-health consultations with their online health records partnerships have been formed with the following companies: MDLiveCare and Hello Health. [53] [ non-primary source needed ]
The original Google Health was an opt-in service, meaning it could only access medical information volunteered by individuals. It did not retrieve any part of a person's medical records without his or her explicit consent and action. [3] However, it did encourage users to set up profiles for other individuals. [4] According to its Terms of Service, Google Health is not considered a "covered entity" under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996; thus, HIPAA privacy laws do not apply to it. [54]
In a 2008 article covering the original Google Health's launch, the New York Times discussed privacy issues and said that "patients apparently did not shun the Google health records because of qualms that their personal health information might not be secure if held by a large technology company." [8] Others contend that Google Health may be more private than the current "paper" health record system because of reduced human interaction. [55]
In 2017, DeepMind, a Google-owned company, was found to have not complied with UK data protection laws, according to the UK Information Commissioner’s Office. [56] The health unit of DeepMind had been formed in early 2016. DeepMind acquired a task management app called Hark developed by Dominic King and Lord Ara Darzi at Imperial College. [57] Deepmind Health was also developing an app with the NHS Royal Free Hospital called Streams that helped monitor patients with acute kidney injury. [57] The ICO said that patients were not notified correctly about how their data was being used. The DeepMind Health team noted the appointment of David Feinberg at Google in November 2018, [58] and later officially joined Google Health in late 2019. [59]
In June 2019, University of Chicago, its medical center, and Google were sued in a potential class-action lawsuit about patient record sharing. A federal judge dismissed the patient data privacy lawsuit on September 4, 2020. [60] The class action suit had been filed by plaintiff Matt Dinerstein and represented by attorney Jay Edelson. [61] [62]
The University noted that class action attorney Edelson had a potential conflict of interest, as an investor in a competing company, Quant HC. According to a legal motion filed in 2019, Edelson and his law partners allegedly "funded, organized, and served as officers and directors of" Quant HC, a company founded by Edelson’s spouse, a physician at University of Chicago. [63] Quant HC, produced medical software called ECART, and received $600,000 of initial investment from Edelson and his wife from its founding in 2012. [64] [65]
In 2018, Project Nightingale started the partnership with Ascension, one of the largest United States health care systems. [20] Ascension health system and Google described the partnership including infrastructure modernization, transitioning to productivity and collaboration tools, and exploring artificial intelligence / machine learning applications and tools for doctors and nurses. [66] [67]
In November 2019, Google engineers were reported to have had access to medical records held by Ascension as they were building products and as a result, the US government opened up an investigation on the partnership. [68] From December 2019 to March 2020, a group of U.S. Senators asked for more information about the project, and how sensitive health information was protected. [69]
Legal observers, however, had noted that there had probably not actually been any HIPAA federal privacy law violations, citing a business associate agreement between Google and Ascension in line with what HIPAA allowed. [70] [71] Other health data experts commented that companies such as IQVIA, UnitedHealth Optum Labs, and Symphony Health, IBM Watson Health (Truven Health) "reap the profits of selling the healthcare data while the people from whom it's collected have no control over how it's used. Nor do they get any compensation for it." [72] For example, IQVIA, a large pharmaceutical research and marketing conglomerate noted that they have data on over 600 million patients in their public 10-K financial filings. [73]
Other media coverage noted that while Google had done nothing illegal, questions remained on what other uses Google intended. [74] Google executive Tariq Shaukat wrote in an official statement that the data would be used in extending tools to doctors and nurses to improve care, writing: "We aim to provide tools that Ascension could use to support improvements in clinical quality and patient safety." [75] The official post was later amended to clarify that Ascension patient data would not be combined with Google consumer data, stating "In accordance with HIPAA and the BAA we sign with our customers, patient data cannot be used for any other purpose than for provisioning the tools specific to the customer."
The stated commitment by Google to not combine data stood in contrast to the health records activities by Facebook.
While Google noted they would not combine health data with consumer data, Facebook had reportedly sought to combine hashed electronic health record data with consumer data. The secretive Facebook "Building 8" project, led by cardiologist Freddy Abnousi, sought to "combine what a health system knows about its patients (such as: person has heart disease, is age 50, takes 2 medications and made 3 trips to the hospital this year) with what Facebook knows (such as: user is age 50, married with 3 kids, English isn't a primary language, actively engages with the community by sending a lot of messages)." [76]
In August 2020, as Google began acquisition of FitBit, the European Commission began investigating Google's potential uses of data collected from Fitbit's health tracking hardware. [77] [78] The Commission expressed concerns about competition, the effects of combining data from FitBit and Google in the digital healthcare sector, and potential effects of interoperability of rivals' wearables with Google's Android operating system for smartphones.
Google's parent company Alphabet, Inc. has also been active in the healthcare industry with the companies Verily, Calico, and DeepMind. [79] In July 2020, sister company Verily was described as acting "largely independent of one another", while Verily chief executive officer Andrew Conrad reportedly wanted to end the "rivalry" between the two companies and collaborate more closely. [80] [81]
On December 7, 2011, MediConnect Global announced a similar capability that allows displaced Google Health users to transfer their personal health records to a MyMediConnect account. [82]
Google Health was a personal health record (PHR) service with numerous competitors, including other proprietary PHR systems and open-source such as Microsoft's HealthVault, Dossia, and the open-source Indivo project. [83]
In the United States hospital market for electronic health records (EHR) in 2018, Epic, Cerner, MEDITECH, and CSPI (Evident Thrive) had the top market share at 28%, 26%, 9%, and 6%. [84] For large hospitals with over 500 beds, Epic and Cerner had over 85% market share in 2019. [85]
On July 18, 2011, Microsoft released a tool that lets Google Health customers transfer their personal health information to a web-based Microsoft HealthVault account. [86] HealthVault had partnered with American Heart Association, Johnson & Johnson, and Allscripts. [87] In November 2019, Microsoft HealthVault was shut down and it was suggested users migrate their records to Get Real Health and FollowMyHealth. [87]
In 2014, Health (Apple) a health informatics mobile application was announced. HealthKit is the accompanying developer application programming interface (API). [88]
In 2019, Roni Zeiger announced he would be joining Facebook as the Head of Health Strategy. [6] The same year in 2019, Facebook announced its project called Preventive Health, a digital tool to connect patients with healthcare providers and sends reminders for health concerns based on age and gender. [89] [90]
In 2017, Facebook had been working on a "top-secret" project headed by Freddy Abnousi to take anonymous medical data and using a common computer science cryptographic technique called "hashing" in order to match individuals. [91] Alleged this information would only be used for the medical research community. [91] Additionally there had been the idea of building virtual profiles of patients that included their medical conditions, as well as their social and economic factors. [91]
Facebook health privacy concerns
In 2020, privacy issues surfaced for Facebook Groups health communities. Breast cancer advocate Andrea Downing raised privacy concerns about Facebook’s closed health communities. She noted that for closed groups like the BRCA Sisterhood group, members' personal information was supposed to only be visible to other members. A cybersecurity researcher found that developers, marketers and others could download the membership lists of Facebook groups for thousands of diseases and conditions, from Alcoholics Anonymous to survivors of sexual assault. [92] As a result, a complaint was filed with the Federal Trade Commission, claiming that Facebook "deceptively solicited patients to use its 'Groups' product to share personal health information about their health issues." [93]
In 2018, Amazon, JPMorgan, and Berkshire Hathaway formed a joint venture called Haven Healthcare to create a new type of health insurance. [68] [94] The three founding companies dissolved Haven in February 2021.
In 2019, Amazon launched a beta program as an extension of a traditional health insurance plan called, Amazon Care, offering both virtual and in-person healthcare. [94] They have tele-medicine via an app, chat and remote video, as well as follow-up visits and prescription drug delivery via home or office. [94]
Medical privacy, or health privacy, is the practice of maintaining the security and confidentiality of patient records. It involves both the conversational discretion of health care providers and the security of medical records. The terms can also refer to the physical privacy of patients from other patients and providers while in a medical facility, and to modesty in medical settings. Modern concerns include the degree of disclosure to insurance companies, employers, and other third parties. The advent of electronic medical records (EMR) and patient care management systems (PCMS) have raised new concerns about privacy, balanced with efforts to reduce duplication of services and medical errors.
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 is a United States Act of Congress enacted by the 104th United States Congress and signed into law by President Bill Clinton on August 21, 1996. It aimed to alter the transfer of healthcare information, stipulated the guidelines by which personally identifiable information maintained by the healthcare and healthcare insurance industries should be protected from fraud and theft, and addressed some limitations on healthcare insurance coverage. It generally prohibits healthcare providers and businesses called covered entities from disclosing protected information to anyone other than a patient and the patient's authorized representatives without their consent. The bill does not restrict patients from receiving information about themselves. Furthermore, it does not prohibit patients from voluntarily sharing their health information however they choose, nor does it require confidentiality where a patient discloses medical information to family members, friends or other individuals not employees of a covered entity.
Oracle Cerner, formerly Cerner, is a US-based supplier of health information technology (HIT) platforms, services, and hardware. In February 2018, more than 27,000 facilities globally utilised Cerner products. The company had more than 29,000 employees globally, with over 13,000 in Kansas City, Missouri. Its headquarters are in the suburb of North Kansas City, Missouri.
Health technology is defined by the World Health Organization as the "application of organized knowledge and skills in the form of devices, medicines, vaccines, procedures, and systems developed to solve a health problem and improve quality of lives". This includes pharmaceuticals, devices, procedures, and organizational systems used in the healthcare industry, as well as computer-supported information systems. In the United States, these technologies involve standardized physical objects, as well as traditional and designed social means and methods to treat or care for patients.
Protected health information (PHI) under U.S. law is any information about health status, provision of health care, or payment for health care that is created or collected by a Covered Entity, and can be linked to a specific individual. This is interpreted rather broadly and includes any part of a patient's medical record or payment history.
Fitbit, Inc. is an American consumer electronics and fitness company. It produces wireless-enabled wearable technology, physical fitness monitors and activity trackers such as smartwatches, pedometers and monitors for heart rate, quality of sleep and stairs climbed as well as related software. The company was acquired by Google in January 2021.
DrChrono is an American digital health technology company that provides software and billing services on a platform of web- and cloud-based apps for doctors and patients. The company makes electronic health records (EHR), practice management software, and medical billing software and provides medical revenue cycle management (RCM) services. The company is based in Sunnyvale, California.
Sharecare is an Atlanta, Georgia-based health and wellness company that provides consumers with personalized health-related information, programs, and resources. It provides personalized information to the site's users based on their responses to the RealAge Test, the company's health risk assessment tool, and offers a clinical decision support tool, AskMD. Headquartered in Atlanta, Sharecare was founded in 2010 by Jeff Arnold and Dr. Mehmet Oz, in partnership with Remark Media, Harpo Studios, Sony Pictures Television and Discovery Communications.
The Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources standard is a set of rules and specifications for exchanging electronic health care data. It is designed to be flexible and adaptable, so that it can be used in a wide range of settings and with different health care information systems. The goal of FHIR is to enable the seamless and secure exchange of health care information, so that patients can receive the best possible care. The standard describes data formats and elements and an application programming interface (API) for exchanging electronic health records (EHR). The standard was created by the Health Level Seven International (HL7) health-care standards organization.
Digital health is a discipline that includes digital care programs, technologies with health, healthcare, living, and society to enhance the efficiency of healthcare delivery and to make medicine more personalized and precise. It uses information and communication technologies to facilitate understanding of health problems and challenges faced by people receiving medical treatment and social prescribing in more personalised and precise ways. The definitions of digital health and its remits overlap in many ways with those of health and medical informatics.
An activity tracker involves the practice of measuring and collecting data on an individual's physical and psychological activity to keep track and maintain documentation regarding their health and wellness. Used for many groups even animals as seen in collar-mounted activity trackers for dogs. A lot of the data is collected through wearable technology such as wristbands which sync with mobile apps through Apple and Samsung. As daily technologies such as phones and computers have been innovated, it paved the way for such wearable tracking technologies to be advanced. There are a variety of stakeholders involved in the usage of activity tracking through wearable technology and mobile health apps, knowing how much they track ranging from fitness, mood, sleep, water intake, medicine usage, sexual activity, menstruation, and potential diseases raises the concern on privacy given a lot of data is collected and analyzed. Through many studies that have been reviewed, data on the various demographics and goals these technologies are used provide more insight into their purposes.
Health information on the Internet refers to all health-related information communicated through or available on the Internet.
American Well Corporation, doing business as Amwell, is a telemedicine company based in Boston, Massachusetts, that connects patients with doctors over secure video. Amwell sells its platform as a subscription service to healthcare providers to put their medical professionals online and its proprietary software development kits, APIs, and system integrations enable clients to embed telehealth into existing workflows utilized by providers and patients.
Health is a health informatics mobile app, announced by Apple Inc. on June 2, 2014, at its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC). The app is available on iPhone and iPod Touch devices running iOS 8 or later, and on iPads running iPadOS 17 or later. The application holds health data such as blood pressure measurement and glucose levels, but also holds physical tracking data such as step counts. It can pull data from fitness trackers, smartwatches, smart scales, and other devices.
Health care analytics is the health care analysis activities that can be undertaken as a result of data collected from four areas within healthcare; claims and cost data, pharmaceutical and research and development (R&D) data, clinical data, and patient behavior and sentiment data (patient behaviors and preferences,. Health care analytics is a growing industry in the United States, expected to grow to more than $31 billion by 2022. The industry focuses on the areas of clinical analysis, financial analysis, supply chain analysis, as well as marketing, fraud and HR analysis.
GoodRx Holdings, Inc. is an American healthcare company that operates a telemedicine platform and free-to-use website and mobile app that track prescription drug prices in the United States and provide drug coupons for discounts on medications. GoodRx checks drug prices at more than seventy-five thousand pharmacies in the United States. In 2017, the website received about fourteen million visitors a month. As of February 25, 2020, "millions of people" had downloaded the GoodRx app.
Federal and state governments, insurance companies and other large medical institutions are heavily promoting the adoption of electronic health records. The US Congress included a formula of both incentives and penalties for EMR/EHR adoption versus continued use of paper records as part of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act, enacted as part of the, American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.
Flo is a health app that provides menstruation tracking, cycle prediction, and information regarding preparation for conception, pregnancy, early motherhood, and menopause.
Project Nightingale is a data storage and processing project by Google Cloud and Ascension, a Catholic health care system comprising a chain of 2,600 hospitals, doctors' offices and other related facilities, in 21 states, with tens of millions of patient records available for processing health care data. Ascension is one of the largest health-care systems in the United States with comprehensive and specific health care information of millions who are part of its system. The project is Google's attempt to gain a foothold into the healthcare industry on a large scale. Amazon, Microsoft and Apple Inc. are also actively advancing into health care, but none of their business arrangements are equal in scope to Project Nightingale.
COVID-19 apps include mobile-software applications for digital contact-tracing - i.e. the process of identifying persons ("contacts") who may have been in contact with an infected individual - deployed during the COVID-19 pandemic.
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: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)The Indivo project has its roots in the Guardian Angel project, a collaboration between Harvard and MIT …The article shows a simple timeline or pedigree of the Personally Controlled Health Record.