HLTH21: DeSalvo says baking health into all Google’s efforts opens the door to ‘billions’ of healthy consumers – FierceHealthcare

Times have certainly been turbulent for those working on health and wellness projects at Google.

The tech giants Google Health division underwent two reorgs this summer, the latter of which resulted in department chief David Feinberg, M.D., jumping ship to lead health IT company Cerner and the Google Health team being scattered across the rest of the companys health adjacent projects.

Internal memos and comments from the company suggested Google was winding back its siloed health approach to instead bake health-focused capabilities into its various existing business linessurfacing verified health information on YouTube or providing care navigation help through Google Maps, for example.

Despite the organizational shuffle, Chief Health Officer Karen DeSalvo, M.D., says the company has done anything but scale back its health efforts.

Our overall goal is to help billions around the world be healthyand that is a big, audacious goal, DeSalvo said during a Sunday keynote at HLTH 2021 in Boston.

I want people to understandfrom the moment I walked in the door, my remit, my work, has been not only to think about how were going to help the healthcare sector but what are we going to do to see that theres authoritative information on all of our platforms, she said. Its quite frankly one of the things thats been most exciting to me about the company because we know that we can reach literally billions of people and give them good information to help them make better choices about their health or to navigate their care journey.

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DeSalvo said her team now guides Google on the health components of its authoritative information services, its regulated medical products and its employee health and safety. She noted that the last area has been a particular focus for her over the course of the pandemic, though so much of what weve learned about education around testing or vaccines or how to do better forecasting has been applicable to the work weve done outside.

The broader, complementary strategy does make quantifying the successes of her team a bit less straightforward.

Some areas, like wearables or the provider-focused Care Studio suite, can be judged by sales numbers or user feedback. Consumer health messaging initiatives can similarly be tracked by webpage impressions, while more complex projects like health screening AI can be proven to healthcare stakeholders via the industrys various quality measurement tools.

However, DeSalvo said her teams mandate at Google isnt so much driving profits through singular products or services. Rather, its driving health improvements for as many people as possible to achieve the downstream benefits of a healthy customer base.

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Our get up every morning, raison d'tre, is impact. Its helping billions around the world be healthier, she said. Its built into the DNA of the company and the way we think about it, which, going back to that iteration were on now, [means] its not just one product area or one department. We really are thinking about how we weave health into all parts of our business, because if we do that its good for the user, which is good for customers, which is good for business. It just makes sense to us.

That emphasis on scale is a boon for DeSalvo, who comes from a medical and public health background. Providers and public agencies only have so much reach into an individuals life, she explained, limiting the impact they have on health education and decision-making.

Those limitations are stark in relation to Googles ubiquitous platforms, which two years ago offered an opportunity that DeSalvo couldnt refuse.

Were with people all across their life flow, when theyre making decisions about what food to buy or where to exercise or when theyre trying to learn more about whether or not they should get a flu shot, she said. We can do those health things, but also we have programs around education and economic opportunity. This is, for me then, this marrying together of great care and addressing social determinants of health and equity all in one company.

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HLTH21: DeSalvo says baking health into all Google's efforts opens the door to 'billions' of healthy consumers - FierceHealthcare