GCP for clinical data — a practical reference architecture
The pattern we deploy when sponsors and biotechs want a HIPAA-aligned data platform on Google Cloud — funded, where we can, with GCP startup or partner credits.
The four layers
- Landing zone — Organization, folders, projects, VPC-SC perimeter, KMS, IAM, Cloud Logging, Security Command Center, BAA executed with Google.
- Ingest & interop — Cloud Healthcare API for FHIR/HL7v2/DICOM stores, Pub/Sub for events, Cloud Functions or Cloud Run for transforms, Dataflow for batch.
- Storage & analytics — BigQuery as the system of analytics, partitioned and clustered; Cloud Storage for raw/curated zones; dbt for modeling; Looker Studio or Looker for dashboards.
- AI & export — Vertex AI for model training and endpoints; Workbench notebooks for biostats; BigQuery exports to OMOP/FHIR-flat for downstream consumers.
HIPAA alignment, in plain English
- BAA executed with Google before any PHI touches a project.
- Only HIPAA-eligible services in PHI projects (the list is published; we keep it pinned).
- CMEK on BigQuery, Cloud Storage, Pub/Sub and Cloud Healthcare stores.
- VPC Service Controls perimeter around PHI projects to stop exfiltration.
- Cloud Audit Logs streamed to a write-once log sink for 6+ years of retention.
- De-identified zone (DLP API) for downstream analytics and AI training.
About the GCP credits
For eligible biotechs, digital-health startups and academic teams, GCP offers credit programs that often cover the first 12–18 months of platform cost. We help you qualify, apply, and architect so credits last as long as possible — committed-use discounts, autoscaling boundaries, BigQuery slot reservations sized to actual query patterns, and lifecycle policies on storage. Talk to us before you start spending.
Cost controls we set on day one
- Budget alerts at 50/80/100% per project with Pub/Sub-driven shutoffs for non-prod.
- BigQuery custom quotas per user and per project to avoid runaway queries.
- Storage lifecycle: hot → nearline → coldline → archive on a calendar.
- Idle GKE/Cloud Run autoscaling to zero in non-prod.
- Cost attribution labels enforced via Organization Policy.
What we deliver in 6–10 weeks
A working landing zone, one ingest pipeline (FHIR or HL7 v2), a BigQuery warehouse with a dbt project, a Looker Studio dashboard for ops, and runbooks. After that, it's iteration on real use cases — registries, EDC reconciliation, AI-ready cohorts.