Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Mayo Clinic Strikes 10-Year Partnership With Google To Store Patient Data, Explore Opportunities With Medical AI
Stat: Google, Mayo Clinic Strike Sweeping Partnership On Patient Data
Mayo Clinic, one of medicine’s most prestigious brands, announced Tuesday that it has struck a sweeping partnership with Google to store patient data in the cloud and build products using artificial intelligence and other technologies to improve care. The 10-year partnership is a testament to Google’s expanding role in the U.S. health care system and gives Mayo greater access to the engineering talent and computing resources it needs to embed its expertise in algorithms and commercial devices. (Ross, 9/10)
The Star Tribune: Mayo Clinic Picks Google For Data Storage As Firms Announce Broader Partnership
Financial terms were not disclosed. As part of the 10-year agreement, Google will store the clinic’s data and open an office in Rochester for research with Mayo on solving complex health care problems. “If this is done well, we believe we’ll have the opportunity to bring some transformative kinds of answers to patients,” Christopher Ross, Mayo’s chief information officer, said in an interview. “And we think we’ll be able to increase innovation substantially.” (Snowbeck, 9/10)
MPR News: Mayo Clinic Lands Data Partnership With Google
Mayo's chief medical information officer, Dr. Steve Peters, said the collaboration will use Mayo’s medical data to develop machine-learning models aimed at improving health care. "You can have a big data set, and you can have a data scientist analyze it,” said Peters. “But without clinical knowledge, medical knowledge or our research knowledge about what it might mean and how it might be applied, you'd not go as far." (Richert, 9/10)
The Wall Street Journal: Google, Amazon And Microsoft In Battle To Store Health Data In The Cloud
Some hospital-system and company officials said they expect to jointly develop new software by combining data and expertise of health-care companies with tech giants’ computing power and engineering know-how. “Google can’t do this alone. We can’t do this alone,” said Cris Ross, Mayo’s chief information officer. The terms weren’t disclosed. Patient records will be kept private and access will be controlled by Mayo, Mr. Ross said. Data used to develop new software will be stripped of any information that could identify individual patients before it is shared with the tech giant. (Evans, 9/10)
Postbulletin.Com: Google, Mayo Clinic To Partner With New Rochester Office
Epic Systems, which took over Mayo Clinic electronic health records in 2018, will still store the primary records at its data center in Verona, Wis., and will store backups at its Rochester data center on West Circle Drive Northwest. (Kiger, 9/10)
In other health and technology news —
Modern Healthcare: Utah Practice Says 320,000 Patient Records Hit In Ransomware Attack
More than 300,000 patients had data compromised in a July ransomware attack at Premier Family Medical, the physician group disclosed to the federal government last week. On Saturday, the physician group reported to the federal government that data on 320,000 patients had been compromised as a result of the breach, according to a submission posted by the HHS' Office for Civil Rights, the agency that maintains the government's database of healthcare breaches. (Cohen, 9/10)
