From entering into an agreement with EHR vendor Epic to piloting its clinical search tool at two health systems, Google is continuing its push into the healthcare industry. Here are six recent healthcare moves from the company as reported by Becker's.
- Google acquired health tech startup Sound Life Sciences, a University of Washington spinout that developed an app to monitor breathing.
- Google Cloud has partnered with health systems including Edison, N.J.-based Hackensack Meridian Health, Pittsburgh-based Highmark Health, Brentwood, Tenn.-based Lifepoint Health and Rochester, Minn.-based Mayo Clinic on data-powered projects to improve health equity, patient flow and value-based care. The so-called healthcare data engine accelerators aim to better collect and analyze social determinants of health data, provide patient flow metrics to reduce bottlenecks, and merge claims and clinical information to identify population health indicators.
- Google Cloud has partnered with COTA, a data and analytics company, to create algorithms that will extract and make sense of unstructured data from electronic health records. The companies will use machine learning and natural language processing to decipher text fields such as clinician notes, transforming them into structured fields that can be used for oncology research and cancer patient treatment.
- Google Cloud and Epic have reached an agreement to enable health systems to migrate their EHRs to the cloud. Edison, N.J.-based Hackensack Meridian Health will be the first organization to do so. The agreement between the tech giant and leading EHR vendor will help facilitate health systems' digital transformation, giving them access to analytics and artificial intelligence services that aim to boost patient outcomes.
- Meditech and Google Health will pilot their clinical search tool at Tuscaloosa, Ala.-based DCH Health System and Mauston, Wis.-based Mile Bluff Medical Center. The tool embeds Google Health's search and summarization capabilities to create a longitudinal view of a patient's health history directly within the clinical workflow of Meditech's EHR system.
- Google Cloud, health insurance company Highmark Health and healthcare software company League are forming a new digital health platform for Highmark Health's members. The new platform is a "digital front door" for members, offered on the web and through the My Highmark app. It will help members with scheduling appointments, accessing primary care and urgent care, managing prescription drugs and other services.