Reactions to the recent agreement between Google and the health system Ascension make it clear we are at the beginning of “a long, contentious, and vital debate over how to manage personal health information in the digital age,” writes Commonwealth Fund President David Blumenthal, M.D., in his new essay for Harvard Business Review.

Ascension announced it will begin sending clinical data on its 50 million patients to Google, which will help the company better manage its patients and finances. This raises a number of thorny issues, Blumenthal says. Beyond the limited protections that current privacy laws afford, what other measures can safeguard the personal health information of millions of patients? Do consumers have a right to share in the commercial benefits likely to flow from collaborations between health care organizations and IT companies?

“These and other questions will have to be addressed,” Blumenthal says, “to realize the individual and societal benefits of the health information revolution.”