Roughly a year ago, Google offered health-data company Cerner Corp. an unusually rich proposal.
Cerner was interviewing Silicon Valley giants to pick a storage provider for 250 million health records, one of the largest collections of U.S. patient data. Google dispatched former chief executive Eric Schmidt to personally pitch Cerner over several phone calls and offered around $250 million in discounts and incentives, people familiar with the matter say.
Google had a bigger goal in pushing for the deal than dollars and cents: a way to expand its effort to collect, analyze and aggregate health data on millions of Americans. Google representatives were vague in answering questions about how Cerner's data would be used, making the health-care company's executives wary, the people say. Eventually, Cerner struck a storage deal with Amazon.com Inc. instead.
The failed Cerner deal reveals an emerging challenge to Google's move into health care: gaining the trust of health care partners and the public. So far, that has hardly slowed the search giant.
Google has struck partnerships with some of the country's largest hospital systems and most-renowned health-care providers, many of them vast in scope and few of their details previously reported. In just a few years, the company has achieved the ability to view or analyze tens of millions of patient health records in at least three-quarters of U.S. states, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of contractual agreements.
In certain instances, the deals allow Google to access personally identifiable health information without the knowledge of patients or doctors. The company can review complete health records, including names, dates of birth, medications and other ailments, according to people familiar with the deals.
The prospect of tech giants' amassing huge troves of health records has raised concerns among lawmakers, patients and doctors, who fear such intimate data could be used without individuals' knowledge or permission, or in ways they might not anticipate.
More ...
https://www.wsj.com/articles/paging-dr-google-how-the-tech-giant-is-laying-claim-to-health-data-11578719700
Tuesday, January 14, 2020
What to Say to Someone With Cancer - The New York Times
Do you know what to say or what to do when a friend, relative or acquaintance has cancer?
Chances are, like many of the people who interacted with Lynda Wolters, you may not. Ms. Wolters, author of the recently published book "Voices of Cancer," was found in midlife to have a relatively rare and currently incurable cancer called mantle cell lymphoma.
"Because people had no idea what to say to me, for me, or about me, they often avoided me instead," she wrote, prompting her to reach out to strangers in support groups for spiritual strength.
Those who did speak to Ms. Wolters too often said something unhelpful or off-putting like "Call me if you need anything" or "How are you feeling?" In her blog, she sought to reassure hesitant friends: "I would rather see your face and the pain and fear in your eyes than to have you feel too unsure and awkward to see me. I would rather hear about you, your work, your life, your kids and your puppy's antics than I would about my sickness."
More ...
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/13/well/live/what-to-say-to-someone-with-cancer.html?
Chances are, like many of the people who interacted with Lynda Wolters, you may not. Ms. Wolters, author of the recently published book "Voices of Cancer," was found in midlife to have a relatively rare and currently incurable cancer called mantle cell lymphoma.
"Because people had no idea what to say to me, for me, or about me, they often avoided me instead," she wrote, prompting her to reach out to strangers in support groups for spiritual strength.
Those who did speak to Ms. Wolters too often said something unhelpful or off-putting like "Call me if you need anything" or "How are you feeling?" In her blog, she sought to reassure hesitant friends: "I would rather see your face and the pain and fear in your eyes than to have you feel too unsure and awkward to see me. I would rather hear about you, your work, your life, your kids and your puppy's antics than I would about my sickness."
More ...
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/13/well/live/what-to-say-to-someone-with-cancer.html?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)