Google Learns Again: It’s Not Easy to Disrupt Health Care

Who knew it could be so difficult to disrupt health care? For the second time in seven years, Google Health is being dismantled. Nevertheless, the search engine giant will continue to focus on health tech and work to improve health care outcomes globally.

Google will move its health care projects into the company’s other divisions with no layoffs planned, according to a company memo obtained by Insider.

This means that Google’s Nest Hub smart home devices, Fitbit wearables and clinical programs on artificial intelligence and Studio electronic health record search tool will now develop their own strategies, a CB Insights analyst recently told FierceHealthcare. Google Health’s clinical team, which is building a tool to make it simpler for doctors to search health records, will report to Karen DeSalvo, M.D., chief medical officer.

Google’s first health care-dedicated business, also called Google Health, was a personal health record service. It folded in 2012. David Feinberg, M.D., was brought in during 2018 to lead the reincarnation of Google Health. He recently left the company and will become CEO of Cerner Oct. 1.