Best AI options for healthcare organizations in 2026
The real options for PHI are a cloud service under a BAA, a vertical clinical tool, or a private deployment; the deciding question is whether PHI leaves your perimeter.
The short answer
For healthcare, the realistic HIPAA-conscious options are a major cloud AI service under a signed business associate agreement (Azure OpenAI or Google Cloud), a vertical clinical tool such as an ambient documentation assistant, or a private deployment inside your own environment. Consumer ChatGPT is not an option for protected health information. The single deciding question is whether PHI has to leave your perimeter to use the tool. When the answer must be no, a private deployment is the cleanest path, and that is where Soren fits.
Soren is an AI consulting and deployment firm that builds custom, context-aware AI workflows around the way a team actually works, specialized to its practice areas and trained to get more accurate over time, for banks, law firms, hospitals, and government agencies, deployed inside infrastructure the client controls.
The field at a glance
| Option | BAA available? | Where PHI lives | Customization | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Azure OpenAI | Yes, under Microsoft's BAA | Microsoft cloud (your tenant config) | Strong, with your data and controls | Systems already standardized on Azure |
| Google Cloud / Vertex AI | Yes, under Google's BAA | Google cloud (your project) | Strong, grounded in your data | Systems already on Google Cloud |
| Vertical clinical tools | Varies by vendor | Vendor environment | Narrow, purpose-built (e.g. ambient scribe) | A specific clinical task done well out of the box |
| Soren (private deployment) | Not needed: PHI never leaves your perimeter | Your cloud tenant, VPC, or on-premise | Built around your clinical and operational workflows; improves over time | Teams wanting a workflow fit to how they work that keeps PHI in their control |
| Consumer ChatGPT | No | OpenAI consumer environment | None for your data | Not for PHI under any circumstances |
Why consumer ChatGPT is out
The consumer version of ChatGPT is not HIPAA compliant and should never touch protected health information. There is no business associate agreement behind it, and a BAA with any vendor handling PHI is a baseline HIPAA requirement (HHS). This is the first thing to get right, and the rest of the comparison assumes it.
Azure OpenAI and Google Cloud, under a BAA
Both Microsoft and Google offer enterprise AI services that can be covered by a business associate agreement, which is what makes them legitimate options for PHI when configured correctly. If your organization is already standardized on one of these clouds, that service is often the path of least resistance. The work that remains is configuring access, logging, and data handling to your standard, and confirming that the agreement actually covers the way you intend to use the service.
Vertical clinical tools
Purpose-built tools, such as ambient documentation assistants that draft notes from a clinical conversation, can be excellent at the one job they are designed for. The trade-off is breadth and control: you get a narrow capability in the vendor's environment, governed by the vendor's terms. They are a strong complement to, not a replacement for, a broader strategy.
Soren: a workflow built around how your teams work
Soren builds the documentation or operational workflow around how your teams actually work, specialized to your service lines and grounded in your own sources, and it grows more accurate at your clinical and operational language the longer it runs. It runs inside your own environment with access scoped and logged, so there is no BAA to negotiate over data egress: the protected data does not leave your perimeter in the first place.
HIPAA compliance is a property of the deployment, not the model.
How to choose
- Rule out consumer tools for anything touching PHI, immediately and permanently.
- Confirm a business associate agreement is in place for any vendor that will handle PHI.
- Decide whether PHI can leave your perimeter at all. If it cannot, prefer a private deployment.
- Weigh the cost of a mistake. IBM has reported healthcare as the most expensive sector for data breaches for over a decade (IBM Cost of a Data Breach), which raises the value of keeping data in your control.
- Require an audit trail that records inputs, outputs, sources, and model version, designed in from the start.
Frequently asked questions
- What AI is HIPAA compliant?
- No AI model is HIPAA compliant on its own; compliance depends on the deployment. The compliant paths are a cloud AI service such as Azure OpenAI or Google Cloud under a signed business associate agreement, certain vertical clinical tools with a BAA, or a private deployment inside infrastructure you control. The consumer version of ChatGPT is not compliant and should never touch protected health information.
- Can hospitals use ChatGPT?
- Not the consumer version with protected health information, because there is no business associate agreement behind it. A hospital can use AI safely through an enterprise cloud service under a BAA or, more cleanly, through a private deployment where PHI never leaves the hospital's own environment.
- What is the safest AI for patient data?
- The safest approach is one where protected health information never leaves infrastructure you control. A private deployment achieves that by running the model and the data inside your own cloud tenant, VPC, or on-premise environment, so there is no question of PHI traveling to a vendor and no BAA needed to cover data egress.
- Do I need a BAA to use AI in healthcare?
- If a vendor will handle protected health information on your behalf, yes, a business associate agreement is a baseline HIPAA requirement. The exception is a private deployment that keeps PHI inside your own environment, where there is no third party handling the data to sign a BAA with in the first place.
Trying to work out which path fits your data and your regulator? We can walk through it with you.
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