Google moves further into healthcare: A timeline of the last year

Google has made several significant partnerships and launched initiatives in the last year to deepen its presence in healthcare.

A timeline of Google's recent healthcare deals, executive hires and product releases in the last 12 months.

1. Sept. 19, 2019: Google Health completes its acquisition of DeepMind, a U.K.-based startup the tech giant acquired for more than $500 million in 2014.

2. Oct. 2: Google Cloud and EHR company Meditech partner to make Meditech EHR available through Google's cloud as a service subscription.

3. Oct. 18: Google appointed former ONC national coordinator Karen DeSalvo, MD, as the chief health officer. She advises Google on providers, physicians and nurses and works within Alphabet's cloud computing and life sciences sectors.

4. Oct. 30: Google Cloud adds an EHR voice assistant called Suki. The artificial intelligence, voice-enabled digital assistant was developed to help clinicians complete administrative tasks, including documentation or EHR information retrieval.

5. Nov. 1: Google's parent, Alphabet, reports plans to acquire Fitbit for $2.1 billion.

6. Nov. 4: Google Health's head David Feinberg, MD, reveals plans to provide search functions that integrate with the EHR to help with data entry, charting and billing at the HLTH healthcare conference in Las Vegas.

7. Nov. 11: The Wall Street Journal reports that Google had partnered with St. Louis-based Ascension to gather patient information to create healthcare solutions. Google received data on lab results, diagnostics and hospitalization records to help Ascension modernize its infrastructure, although some raised concerns about privacy.

8. Dec. 3: Members of Google Health's artificial intelligence team develop deep learning models to detect four types of complications in chest radiographs and publish an article in Radiology showing that the AI technology was as accurate as expert radiologists.

9. Dec. 11: Google Health recruits AliveCor CMO Jacqueline Shreibati, MD, to its team.

2020

10. Feb. 5: GV, Google's venture capital arm, leads a $100 million funding round in Verana Health, a technology startup that analyzes clinical data to advance ophthalmic and neurologic care and research.

11. Jan. 29: A deep learning model developed by Google Health researchers assists providers in diagnosing anemia based on noninvasive retinal screening, rather than a traditional blood test. A study based on the findings is published in Nature Biomedical Engineering.

12. Feb. 3: Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston partners with Google Cloud and ProofPilot to improve the existing ProofPilot digital clinical trial. The revamped software will be integrated into the Google Cloud server and implement Google's data products designed around interoperability standards.

13. Feb. 12: CNBC reports that Google Health now has 500 employees, primarily based in Palo Alto, Calif.

14. March 16: Google's sister company Verily begins offering a COVID-19 testing pilot program that includes online screening and new testing locations.

15. March 28: Google and Microsoft, as well as other tech firms, partnered with England's National Health Services to track COVID-19 spread.

16. April 7: Google Cloud partners with Nashville, Tenn.-based HCA Healthcare and Sada Systems to develop an open data platform to promote data-sharing on the coronavirus pandemic.

17. May 11: New York City-based Mount Sinai partners with Google Nest to install video and audio technologies for monitoring critically ill COVID-19 patients.

18. May 18: Google sister company Verily launches the Baseline COVID-19 Research Project, which aims to study disease testing methods and antibodies as well as how the virus affects mental health.

19. May 20: Google and Apple partner to launch an interoperable AIP designed to measure COVID-19 contact-tracing using Bluetooth technology in smartphones.

20. May 20: Google reveals its AI system that detects age-related macular degeneration in the eye and demonstrates the potential to predict the disease's progression.

21. May 28: Google begins providing a clinically certified questionnaire for all users who search for information about anxiety, a feature implemented to help address mental health concerns inflicted by pandemic-related stress.

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