The biggest of big data and healthcare have made a partnership. Google and Ascension’s “Project Nightingale” aims to trigger a major change in healthcare data management and set the stage for the next era of health tech innovation.
By digitizing health care data from 21 US states, Google will now have a key building block to train AI to develop personalized patient care, and healthcare operations optimizations.
This is a key strategic position against other big entries into healthcare and AI like Amazon and Microsoft.
Project Nightingale started as a secret project to grow its data pool. A lack of transparency and critical safeguards have made patient and privacy advocacy organizations concerned about patient data.
It’s obvious that the future of healthcare will be data driven, but history shows we should act with prudence. The risk of abuse and fraud in medicine has always been a problem. Without safeguards in place we can fall prey to innovation at the expense of society.
-jm