Google Denies It’s Misusing Health Data as HHS Starts Inquiry
- Tech giant is building search tool for digital medical records
- Contract with Ascension has raised questions about privacy
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Google’s top health and cloud executives said the company isn’t misusing health data from one of the biggest U.S. health-care providers, pushing back against news reports that have triggered criticism from lawmakers and prompted a federal inquiry.
Google employees only have access to patient information in order to build a new internal search tool for the Ascension hospital network, said David Feinberg, head of Google Health. No patient data is being used for Google’s artificial intelligence research, he added.