The federal government has warned hospitals that using third-party analytics tools on their websites could violate HIPAA, and more than 20 hospitals are facing class-action lawsuits over the use of these tools. But a recent analysis found that hospitals are doing a poor job of fixing their websites and preventing patient data collection.

Senator Mark Warner (D-Virginia) penned a letter to Google leadership expressing concerns about Med-PaLM 2 — the company’s generative AI tool for healthcare providers that is currently being used by Mayo Clinic and other health systems. The letter requested that Google provide more clarity about its chatbot’s training, accuracy, ethical considerations and deployment in healthcare settings.

Three senators recently introduced legislation that would ban the use of health data for advertising and marketing purposes. The proposed legislation comes amid media reports claiming that data brokers are selling social media companies patients’ location data, as well as reports that hospitals and digital health startups are collecting patients’ online data and sharing it with tech giants such as Facebook and Google.

GoodRx failed to notify users that it sold their personal health information to Google, Facebook and other tech companies, the FTC claimed. The agency filed an order that prohibits GoodRx from sharing its users’ data with third parties for advertising purposes and requires the company to pay a $1.5 million penalty. GoodRx agreed to pay the settlement but did not admit to wrongdoing.

Medical device manufacturer iCAD entered into a development and commercialization agreement with Google Health, in which it will integrate Google’s mammography AI technology into its suite of breast imaging AI products. The agreement marks Google’s first commercial partnership to deploy its breast imaging AI model into clinical practice.

Uncertainty, benefits navigation, cost and innovation are some of the key challenges ahead for those in the employee health benefits space. Executives made these comments last week during the HLTH conference in Las Vegas.

A panel of healthcare data experts recently broke down some of healthcare’s most common buzzwords at HLTH. While the experts agreed that many industry professionals still struggle to grasp the true denotations of words and phrases like “interoperability” and “reimagining healthcare,” the panelists said these terms can be quite meaningful once they’re unpacked.

Google announced three updates at the Google Health Equity Summit, including a new video series partnership, improved search features and an expanded program with Fitbit.

Michael Howell, chief clinical officer of Google, discussed the ways AI and ML are serving healthcare, as well as some lessons he learned since he started working at Google.

The nonprofit Digital Medicine Society is partnering with the likes of Google and the FDA to develop a free resource designed to help digital health startups navigate the regulatory process.

The New Jersey-based health system initially partnered with Google in 2019. It has now migrated to Google Workspace, providing thousands of Chrome OS devices to remote workers, and is using Google Cloud AI capabilities to detect diseases like breast cancer and Covid-19.

People who access Onduo through their employer will have access to the wearables and Fitbit’s subscription program. Google closed its acquisition of Fitbit earlier this year, and Onduo is a subsidiary of Google’s sister company, Verily.

London-based firm Mishcon de Reya said it filed a claim in the U.K.’s High Court, alleging that Google’s access of 1.6 million people’s medical records broke privacy rules. NHS’ Royal Free London had struck an agreement with DeepMind in 2015 to build a system for alerting clinicians. 

Cincinnati-based IncludeHealth launched a virtual physical therapy program using pose-estimation models developed by Google. It plans to offer this software to healthcare providers, starting with its largest partner to date, ProMedica Health System.

The algorithm maps interactions between different areas of the brain, which can help guide the placement of electrodes for stimulating devices to treat brain diseases, like epilepsy, and movement disorders.

Apple has integrated with 700 providers for its health records app. But it faces a similar challenge to other health records projects that have failed in the past: patient uptake. 

The tech giant plans to dissolve its health division with the departure of leader Dr. David Feinberg. But Google maintains that healthcare is still a big focus for the company, and that the division’s projects and staff would continue under other leaders. 

Google is piloting its healthcare data engine, a tool intended to build longitudinal patient records and pull in data from multiple sources. Early work with Mayo Clinic served as a foundation for the technology. 

Google recently reshuffled its health division, moving a significant number of employees over to its Fitbit and Search businesses. Analysts said it’s no surprise Google would focus its consumer health efforts on Fitbit, given Fitbit’s broad reach and the competition to add more meaningful health features to these devices. 

The health system and technology giant are teaming up to create a data analytics platform and tools that support workflow management. Google Cloud will gain access to the massive trove of patient information gathered at HCA’s 184 hospitals in accordance with predetermined privacy rules.

Google is making its first foray into patient-facing healthcare tools with a dermatology symptom-checker. Users take an image of the spot they’re concerned about and receive three potential “matches” for likely results. 

The health system and tech giant are more than a year into their 10-year collaboration. As their partnership evolves, the organizations are looking to create an “AI factory” — an assembly line of AI solutions that are developed at scale and incorporated into clinical workflows.

As states begin to roll out vaccines to the broader public, Google will make it easier for people to find out when they are eligible and where they can get a vaccine. The effort is part of a broader push, including $150 million in grants to promote vaccine education and equitable access.

Google announced it had closed its planned acquisition of Fitbit on Thursday, even thought the deal is still being investigated by the U.S. Department of Justice.

After European regulators signed off on the deal, Australian regulators rejected a proposal by Google to assuage concerns about its proposed acquisition of Fitbit. They will continue their investigation of the merger through the end of March.

Google rolled out a Health Studies app, a rival to Apple’s research app. To start, it will offer a study on respiratory illness in conjunction with Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital.

In a challenge where researchers try to predict the shape of newly identified proteins, an AI system developed by DeepMind determined the shape of two-thirds of proteins with an accuracy comparable to laboratory experiments.

Alphabet’s “moonshot” subsidiary X shared that it failed to find a single biomarker for depression and anxiety. But the company still plans to make its research, which included developing portable EEGs, available to the public.

In a Thursday blog post, officials shared that the app’s “risk threshold” had been lowered to account for exposure to people when they are most infectious. The update was supposed to take place when the app was launched in late September.

The companies announced they would no longer require public health authorities to develop their own apps, but will instead offer exposure notification directly through users’ phones. The service is still opt-in.