10 biggest healthcare moves from Google in 2022

From entering into an agreement with EHR vendor Epic to helping some of the biggest health systems improve health equity through data, Google is continuing its push into the healthcare industry. 

Here are 10 of the biggest healthcare moves from the company in 2022: 

1. Google Cloud 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.
   
   
2. 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.
   
   
3. 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.
   
   
4. 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.
   
   
5. 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.
   
   
6. Google's Care Studio expanded the capabilities of its clinician-facing search tool using artificial intelligence to summarize and contextualize physicians' clinical notes.
   
   
7. Google technology experts will help advise startups that join Rochester, Minn.-based Mayo Clinic's 20-week AI program.
   
   
8. Google announced plans to roll out a feature that allows patients to view appointment availability for participating healthcare providers directly from its search page.
   
   
9. Google's artificial intelligence natural language processing tool will be used by Mayo Clinic to better track and analyze language-based information in patients' EHRs.
   
   
10. Google Health announced that it is working on three AI-based projects — a smartphone stethoscope, AI tech that can read prenatal ultrasounds and AI that can spot illness using the camera on a smartphone.