GAFAMS, STARTUPS & INNOVATION IN HEALTHCARE by PHARMAGEEK

Google says it is ramping up its investments in health-focused initiatives even as it dissolves its single unified health division.

From consumer-facing products like sleep tracking tech with its Nest Hub smart home devices and Fitbit wearables to clinical initiatives like its Care Studio EHR search tool and its health AI work, Google has intensified its focus on health tech and expanded its reach into the healthcare market.

But those projects will now be split across Google's myriad teams and divisions as the tech giant pivots away from a unified health strategy and reassigns its 570 employees across the company, according to a leaked memo obtained by Insider.

Google Health chief David Feinberg, M.D., who joined the company in 2019, jumped ship to health IT company Cerner as its new CEO and president. The electronic health record software company announced the move late last week.

Meanwhile, the projects and teams that make up Google Health will now be scattered across different parts of Google, Insider reported Friday. 

A source at Google said the company remains deeply invested in health-focused initiatives but confirmed there will no longer be a single entity at the company focused on health projects.

The teams under Feinberg will all continue on, and there will be no job eliminations or project changes.

In a memo sent to employees Thursday, Jeff Dean, Ph.D., the head of Google's research division and Feinberg's boss, said Google Health would no longer function as a unified organization, Insider's Hugh Langley and Blake Dodge reported.

Google's chief medical officer, Karen DeSalvo, M.D., who leads the team focused on regulatory and clinical matters, will now report to Chief Legal Officer Kent Walker, the memo said.

Google Health's clinicians team, which is building a tool for physicians to more easily search health records, will now report directly to Dean. The health AI group, focused on projects like medical imaging, will report to Yossi Matias, the vice president of search and AI, Langley and Dodge reported.

The move to shutter the dedicated health division signals the end of a unified healthcare strategy at Google, Jeff Becker, principal analyst for healthcare at market intelligence firm CB Insights, told Fierce Healthcare.

"They are going back to a business-line vertical healthcare strategy, rather than the top-down pursuit of healthcare at scale at Google. The fractured healthcare strategy across Google never did get resolved," he said. 

He added, "Nest is still following its health strategy, Fitbit has its own healthcare strategy as does Google Search, and that's on the consumer-facing side. Google Health has an enterprise health strategy while Google Cloud has an enterprise health strategy and so does Verily. Different parts of the business are still pursuing a non-unified and non-cohesive healthcare strategy."

In a statement provided to Fierce Healthcare, a Google spokesperson said "Google deeply believes in the power of technology to improve health and wellness and we have increased our health investments across the company. This has included developing projects within Google Health, launching and expanding health-related features on Search, Maps and YouTube that reach billions of people, and welcoming Fitbit."

"Today, health is a growing, company-wide effort and the Google Health name will continue and encompass our projects that share the common purpose to improve global health outcomes," the spokesperson said.

Google reorganizes its health teams … again

Google Heath was formed in 2018 as a way to silo all of the tech giant's health efforts under one division. The company tapped Feinberg, former CEO of Geisinger Health, to lead it and develop a centralized, overarching strategy for the health-focused projects.

Back in June, the tech giant’s health division went through a significant reorganization, resulting in a downsized team and a streamlined focus on clinical and regulatory work rather than consumer-facing offerings, Fierce Medtech's Andrea Park reported, based on initial reporting from Insider.

That reorg included a transfer of nearly 20% of Google Health’s staff to other teams throughout the company, including its search division and newly acquired Fitbit.

"That was telling and a sign of another fracturing of the unified healthcare strategy," Becker said.

He added, "Google’s health strategy was notoriously fractured. We saw some early movement that it looked like this was going to go somewhere."

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Google Health created community mobility reports to aid public health efforts and worked with Apple on exposure notification technology. Google Health has built out clinical tools like Care Studio, developed an AI-powered dermatology assist tool and ramped up partnerships with health systems through its Google Cloud healthcare data products

Former employees previously told Insider that Google Health had a central business development team to explore ways the product area could make money, Langley and Dodge reported. The idea is to bake healthcare into what Google's already doing as opposed to making it a separate line of business.

And that could prove to be a more pragmatic approach to creating a revenue stream for different healthcare-related products.

"David was brought in to establish a broader aim and vision for the portfolio but other parts of the business seem to do just fine with their own niche. Maybe the more pragmatic approach is to let businesses that know those product lines verticalize them independently," Becker said.

Tech giants have struggled to rebrand as health tech companies. Microsoft tried and failed at a personal health records business. Microsoft HealthVault launched in 2007 but ultimately closed down in 2019 because of low adoption.

There also came news last week that Apple is reportedly scaling back one of its most ambitious healthcare projects. According to a report from Insider, Apple is scaling back HealthHabit, an internal application that Apple employees can use to track fitness goals, talk to clinicians and manage hypertension.

The benefits of modern technology have now touched almost all aspects of our life. However, healthcare is one area that has probably gained the most from technological innovations we have experienced in the last few decades. Be it reducing nursing home abuse or the development of new treatment methodologies, technology continues to make our healthcare sector more efficient. Technological developments accomplished in recent years have saved millions of lives and improved the quality of human life.

Let us take a look at some of the most noteworthy improvements in healthcare caused by the latest technological innovations.

Digitalization of Health Records:

The replacement of paper-based records by Electronic Health Records (EHRs) has been a massive game-changer in the healthcare industry. This development has not only made it possible for the patients to access their medical records effortlessly but also ensured that critical errors are caught promptly.

Amongst many benefits brought to healthcare by electronic health records, here are few important ones.

• Improved Patient Care: EHRs are capable of sending automatic alerts to physicians about potential issues. This is proven to be a critical benefit for the treatment of unresponsive patients.
• Better Public Health: EHRs also help the process of advancing medical knowledge and developing treatment methodologies for health problems by proving important information to clinical researchers.
• Simplified Workflow: Out of all types of allied health workers in the US, medical coders and billers probably have the most stressful job. The introduction of EHRs has undoubtedly made lives much easier for these key healthcare professionals.
• Lower Healthcare Cost: A study conducted recently by the University of Michigan suggests that the expense incurred on outpatient care can be brought down significantly by shifting to electronic health records from paper.

If you have followed the news on digital technology and health in recent months, you will have read of a blockbuster fraud trial centred on a dubious blood-testing device, a controversial partnership between a telehealth company and a data analytics company, a social media company promising action to curb the spread of vaccine misinformation, and another addressing its role in the deteriorating mental health of young women. For proponents and critics alike, these stories encapsulate the health impact of many digital technologies, and the uncertain and often unsubstantiated position of digital technologies for health. The Lancet and Financial Times Commission on governing health futures 2030: growing up in a digital world, brings together diverse, independent experts to ask if this narrative can still be turned around? Can digital technologies deliver health benefits for all?

Digital technologies could improve health in many ways. For example, electronic health records can support clinical trials and provide large-scale observational data. These approaches have underpinned several high-profile research findings during the COVID-19 pandemic. Sequencing and genomics have been used to understand SARS-CoV-2 transmission and evolution. There is vast promise in digital technology, but the Commission argues that, overall, digital transformations will not deliver health benefits for all without fundamental and revolutionary realignment.

Globally, digital transformations are well underway and have had both direct and indirect health consequences. Direct effects can occur through, for example, the promotion of health information or propagating misinformation. Indirect ones can happen via effects on other determinants of health, including social, economic, commercial, and environmental factors, such as influencing people's exposure to marketing or political messaging. Children and adolescents growing up in this digital world experience the extremes of digital access. Young people who spend large parts of their lives online may be protected or vulnerable to online harm. But many individuals remain digitally excluded, affecting their access to education and health information. Digital access, and the quality of that access, must be recognised as a key determinant of health. The Commission calls for connectivity to be recognised as a public good and human right.

Describing the accumulation of data and power by dominant actors, many of which are commercial, the Commissioners criticise business models based on the extraction of personal data, and those that benefit from the viral spread of misinformation. To redirect digital technologies to advance universal health coverage, the Commission invokes the guiding principles of democracy, equity, solidarity, inclusion, and human rights. Governments must protect individuals from emerging threats to their health, including bias, discrimination, and online harm to children. The Commission also calls for accountability and transparency in digital transformations, and for the governance of misinformation in health care—basic principles, but ones that have been overridden in a quest for freedom of expression and by the fear that innovation could be sidelined. Public participation and codesign of digital technologies, particularly including young people and those from affected communities, are fundamental.

The Commission also advocates for data solidarity, a radical new approach to health data in which both personal and collective interests and responsibilities are balanced. Rather than data being regarded as something to be owned or hoarded, it emphasises the social and relational nature of health data. Countries should develop data trusts that unlock potential health benefits in public data, while also safeguarding it.
Digital transformations cannot be reversed. But they must be rethought and changed. At its heart, this Commission is both an exposition of the health harms of digital technologies as they function now, and an optimistic vision of the potential alternatives. Calling for investigation and expansion of digital health technologies is not misplaced techno-optimism, but a serious opportunity to drive much needed change. Without new approaches, the world will not achieve the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals.

However, no amount of technical innovation or research will bring equitable health benefits from digital technologies without a fundamental redistribution of power and agency, achievable only through appropriate governance. There is a desperate need to reclaim digital technologies for the good of societies. Our future health depends on it.

The adoption of technology in healthcare over the years has led to better diagnosis and treatment of patients. Out of all the benefited sectors from technology adoption, healthcare is probably the most important one. Consequently, it improved the quality of life over time, and it has saved many lives.

But what are some of the benefits of technology in healthcare? And what are some groundbreaking medical technologies in healthcare right now?

Benefits of Information Technology in Healthcare

The benefits of information technology in healthcare or health Information Technology, as else called, are plenty.

To begin, IT enables health practitioners to store and retrieve data relating to a patient’s health records. It also enhances the communication of patient information through a legible format that anyone can use.

As a result, it reduces the chance of medication errors. Finally, it makes it easier to retrieve patient information through a database without new health checks. All the above technologies in healthcare have a thing in common; they improve health and patient safety.

The use of medical technology tools safeguards patient safety. First, there are alerts on medication, flags and reminders, consultation and diagnosis reports, and the easier availability of patient data. Particularly, alerts can help someone adhere to specific treatments and schedules of treatment.

Also, an electronic recording of data can lead to uniformity of practice across all health practitioners. Finally, using an electronic health record can improve provided care for common conditions based on past evidence.

Medical Technologies

Someone cannot argue that technology in healthcare is a new thing. We use medical technology from the most severe case to the simplest medical case, like breaking a bone. From plaster to robotic surgery, technological advancement is always present and undisputable. Nevertheless, behind every medical technology, there is the patient in mind. In recent years there have been many groundbreaking advancements in technology in healthcare: 

• 3-D printing: 3-D printing has been around for some years in many fields. When it comes to medicine, it creates implants or even joints for surgery. It is also prevalent in prosthetics as it can create perfect matching limbs allowing extra comfort and mobility.
• Artificial organs: Like 3-D printing, but for actual and operational organs, the patients’ immune system will not be rejected. Else called bio-printing is an up-and-coming area in technology in healthcare that could save millions of patients every year.
• Robotic surgery: Adds control, precision, and flexibility to a surgeon’s hands to operate as non-invasively as possible to a patient. It has allowed making certain operations easier or even possible.
• Health wearables: Began as a fitness tracker to track heart rate and pace, they highlighted healthcare potential. Health wearables can detect cardiovascular anomalies earlier and prevent severe conditions.
• Virtual reality (VR): VR is being used heavily in recent years but mainly for entertainment purposes. However, virtual reality can help medical students have “real life” experiences in procedures and visual understanding of human anatomy.
• Telehealth: It is a very up-and-coming market that allows patients receive medical care through digital devices. Patients can easily have access to their doctor while they can receive a diagnosis and medical advice.

Conclusion

The transformative power of technology could not obviously be missing from the healthcare sector. Even though it is a sector requiring highly skilled individuals with many years of studies, it is also a very demanding one in infrastructure and tools.

The rise of life expectancy worldwide and the aging of populations create a very demanding area for innovation and technology in healthcare. However, it seems that innovation in the field is very robust, thus changing the landscape every year.