Google's vice president of health, David Feinberg, MD, said he doesn't feel the pressure to turn a profit from the tech giant's latest health ventures, according to a June 9 report by CNBC.
Instead, the pressure comes from bringing the health products to a global scale, he said at The Wall Street Journal's health tech conference June 9.
"The real pressure is, 'Is this really going to help millions of people?'" he said. "'Is it Google scale?' That's the pressure."
He continued: "Yes, there's even more pressure to have global impact, and when I say global impact, we're not talking about revenue, we're talking about, 'We have this diabetic retinopathy screening in India and Thailand, and how do we scale that to the rest of the world?' We have the ability through Android phones to help people with pregnancy or gestational age or read an X-ray."
Dr. Feinberg said Google can scale its products by leveraging the tech company's Android base. Even though these ventures are costly, he affirmed revenue is an afterthought.
"Some of our areas we're thinking of revenue pressure, but I'd say that would come later in the discussions," he said.
Dr. Feinberg said Google's main health focus is on its EHR platform through its partnership with St. Louis-based Ascension, Care Studio.
Dr. Feinberg said that to bring its products to scale, Google needs two things: partnerships and public trust.