No need to 'Google' symptoms, Google has something even better for you

Who doesn't like to 'Google' symptoms? Well, curiosity is good, especially when it is put to meaningful use. But when it becomes a habit, it could be really bad for your health (both physical and mental). Now, Google has a better solution or let's just say an alternative to Googling your symptoms: Google itself is entering the health care industry to modernise diagnosis and treatment with its advanced tools to diagnose and treat your health problems faster. So now, you no longer need to 'Google' your symptoms because it is not needed.

This also marks Google's foray into health care, which was long due. Over the past few years, we have heard a lot of tales about how Google is advancing into health care and helping Doctors diagnose and treat a disease faster. But in reality, it was still a distant shot, isn't it? And more than anything else, the safety and privacy of a patient's health care data have always been bigger concerns. But now, it seems like Google is finally inching closer to achieving its health care dream.

Google partners with a health care company

Earlier this week, Google announced its partnership with a health care company Ascension. But around the same time, the WSJ story revealed that Google had access to thousands of patient health records without doctors’ knowledge. That clearly put Google in a very difficult, rather embarrassing position. After Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal from last year, the data privacy has become a highly-sensitive and widely debated topic all around the world, and Google cannot afford to make a single mistake here.

Both Google and Ascension say that their partnership is compliant with federal health privacy law. Because unlike most of the data Google collects on its users, health data is strictly regulated by the federal government.

How patients will benefit from this partnership

Google's partner Ascension operates health centres in 21 states in the US. Google will provide Ascension with its cloud computing services. Google is also testing if artificial intelligence (AI) can be used to examine health records and find patterns. These patterns might eventually help doctors diagnose and treat a disease faster.

Patient's data is turning out to be the key factor in the health care industry. This data includes a patient's medical prescriptions, medical conditions and past diagnosis. As long as the information remains secure, health care providers can share a patient's data with partner companies which in this case is Google.

“To be clear: under this arrangement, Ascension’s data cannot be used for any other purpose than for providing these services we’re offering under the agreement, and patient data cannot and will not be combined with any Google consumer data,” Google cloud executive Tariq Shaukat wrote in a blog post.

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Privacy concerns

Mere agreements between these companies don't safeguard the sensitive personal information of people. In fact, many users nowadays seem worried about these big tech companies accessing their personal information. As per the recent Pew Research Internet survey, 51 per cent of Americans think major tech companies should be regulated more than they are now.

Tech behemoths like Google, Facebook and Apple have all come under the microscope in the last couple years about how they use (and in some cases, misuse) data they collect on their users.