As Mayo Clinic transitions its EHR to the Google Cloud, the Rochester, Minn.-based health system said patient data will be kept in a "lock box" with Mayo Clinic having the only key, according to the Post Bulletin.
Mayo Clinic's CIO Christopher Ross spoke about the partnership at the health system's annual transform conference. Per the 10-year agreement, Mayo Clinic will leverage Google tools and artificial intelligence to analyze anonymous data.
By using Google's tools, Mayo Clinic will be able to review anonymous patient records 10 times faster and with more power, Mr. Ross said. Patient data will be uploaded to the Google Cloud within 12 to 36 months.
"One of our goals is, as much as possible, to try to keep the data within Mayo's control, even the deidentified data. So as not to ship the data to someone else to do the analysis, but have the analysis part behind the glass in our environment," Mr. Ross said, according to the Post Bulletin.
For patients looking to opt-out from having their information analyzed, it's not going to be possible. Mr. Ross said that it would be impossible to manage an opt-out feature, especially retroactively.