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Comment by xxs | Hacker News Reader

of course not - only visited pages, time spent on them, stuff like that.

Like when you visit “cancer patient support resources” and read for a while…

That greatly depends on implementation. I’ve been implementing Google Ads, Analytics, and Tag Manager for a medical practice recently. Google’s official stance is that PHI is categorically prohibited to send to Ads/Analytics services, but it’s very easy for a marketing firm to unwittingly do.

Thankfully I’m working with a conscientious marketing firm and our client is diligent and well meaning, so it’s easy to avoid the pitfalls, but naively following many integration walkthroughs could have you sending entire form content to Google (or others). I’m sure that’s one of the reason Google explicitly says “don’t put us on your EMR pages” (paraphrased).

I didn't imply ads at all - google analytics has quite extensive info about the patient, the 'user', as is. The visited sites/subsections and stuff would be quite revealing.

Just using the same massive aggregator as your metrics provider is where it gets wrong.

That’s true! Our client is a small practice in pediatrics so we don’t face the same challenges as say, the Mayo Clinic would, in trying to avoid profiling based on indirect information.

Most people aren’t going to be browsing the Betty Ford clinic for fun. They’re looking for something specific. That’s juicy for analytics. I’m glad I don’t have to deal with that challenge.

(Conversion matching quality isn’t a fun challenge either. We’ve landed at “the practice will have to do that themselves to avoid the privacy obstacles”.)

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