Dr. Karen Desalvo was appointed director of health for the company in 2019.
Google’s head of health, Dr. Karen Desalvo, announced today that she would retire. Dr. Desalvo’s career in the company lasted almost 6 years and has experienced some of the most crucial and historic stages of health care, both for organization and society as a whole. In particular, she directed the company’s response to the COVVI-19 pandemic, in addition to building the broader framework of the approach of artificial intelligence and health care. In addition, his mandate also supervised a significant expansion of the health care ecosystem between devices, YouTube, information sharing and the growth of industry partnerships.
Previously, a famous leader in public health and an exercise doctor, Dr. Desalvo began the role in 2019 with a noble goal: to allow technology to improve medicine and clinical care, in order to ultimately improve societal health results.
As a result, under its direction, Google’s health function has experienced significant growth and expansion. During the pandemic, for example, Google and YouTube became one of the main sources of information for billions of people worldwide. Over time, the portfolio continued to develop rapidly; A large part of Dr. Desalvo in the company was spent meeting leaders in industry and field operators to better understand the pain and obstacles of communities and partners. Although Google has always invested considerably in data, this work has focused on the use of this data and this information as a significant tool to help communities, organizations and patients to remain informed and to make decisions on their health.
The fact that technological companies have a health care practice and division seem to be somewhat routine now. After all, many other technology giants, including Amazon Health And MicrosoftCertainly specified their intentions and have invested billions of dollars to establish their own suborganizations dedicated to the field.
However, when Dr. Desalvo started, it was not necessarily the norm; In fact, a technological company devoting an entire ecosystem to something as complex and nuanced as health care was by no means ordinary. On the contrary, a team had to be built from zero, and this process was an unexplored territory. In fact, it was such a unique phenomenon that the Google process in the construction of this team was published in the New England Journal of Medicine And is frequently quoted as a fundamental learning for companies that plan to play a role in the ecosystem of modern health care technology.
The Dre Desalvo says that an aspect of which it is most proud during its time is the subtle but crucial transition of the Google health function considered only considered as advisers become true partners Throughout the business: “We are in an ideal place in a team and as an company to take advantage of the best technologies and information to help billions of people.” She also describes how proud she is of the immense work that was done in the wider portfolio. Some examples include: Google Cloud’s growth, which has enabled dozens of partners to better increase services for their patients; A robust ecosystem for creating medical content and information on YouTube, which has enabled a whole new way of sharing and educating knowledge; And more recently, the aggressive push of the company in the generative AI, which allowed an incredibly promising route to come for the company.
An extremely crucial aspect of Google Health’s growth and success of the leader of the clinic, Dr Michael Howellwhich will soon take up the role of Dr Desalvo. Dr. Howell, an intensive training doctor in training, started in the company as a main scientist at Google Brain, and quickly went to become a leader through the wider health care portfolio. His work was undoubtedly one of the key ingredients in Google Health’s success.
Dr. Howell explains that during his stay with Dr. Desalvo, he saw the clinical team develop considerably, both in terms of people and wallets. However, the mission has always been consistent: “We know what good care should look like; we have spent so much time thinking and talking about the good model to build health products that will really help people.”
Unlike this feeling, Dr. Desalvo comments – “He is the perfect person to participate in this role. He always thinks of the person at the other end of the technology and brings his experiences lived for the team and the products. This is why Dr. Howell is a unicorn. ”
Why is all this important?
Because health care and technology have become remarkably linked in the last decade, and technological companies will undoubtedly redefine the course in industry for the decades to come. The people and the leaders who undertake this important task.
Innovation has enabled individuals, health systems, organizations and devices to collect incredibly large amounts of data. In fact, RBC capital markets reports that the health care industry generates almost 30% of the global data volume. And now it is innovative to understand how to use this data to advance the needle on improving health results. This is why, as mentioned above, the technology giants at all levels invest billions of dollars in the sector and devote entire divisions to work on the most difficult problems of Healthcare.
The intersection of health care and technology has only just begun, in particular with so much potential with data interoperability, consumption clothing and generator AI, to name only a few terms. The technological industry as a whole, including the work of Google / Alphabet, has shown an incredible promise by solving some of the most difficult health challenges. It will certainly not be an easy road; After all, health care is Not the most malleable industry To implement the change. However, there have undoubtedly had immense progress in a relatively short time.
For the story of Healthcare, it is still a lot the “first days” and, surely, there are still a lot of opportunities to create an impact. Dr. Desalvo enthusiastically shares this optimism: “We are in an era of abundance. For decades, health care has always been painted as restrictive – not enough doctors, not enough staff, not enough resources. But now, with a generative AI and a technology as a whole, we can do a lot of goods to take better care and better care about health.