On Google
Is it the worst-kept secret in healthcare, the idea that Google wants to offer some sort of consumer-centric product in the near future? Google VP Adam Bosworth has made a few speeches in recent months on the need for better health information to empower consumers, but the company isn’t talking otherwise. In fact, every healthcare person I’ve talked to that’s had any contact with Google personnel is under some sort of non-disclosure agreement.
Lucky for us, the notes in the program from last month’s World Health Care Congress offered this: “As Google’s architect of the soon-to-be-unveiled health vertical, Mr. Bosworth imparts his compelling vision for providing timely, relevant information to consumers via content providers and health care institutions to create a robust solution.” (Emphasis mine.)
If you have a copy of the full program—the thick, spiral-bound one—it’s on page 14.
Neil,Implicit in your article is an assumption that whatever Google decides to do in health care will be important — that there is potential for disruption, transformation, market shifts — whatever phrase you’d like to use….and intuitively this makes sense to me. The LACK of data flowing to the right place, right person, right time, etc. is a big barrier to improving health care quality and reducing costs.But I’m curious what you and others would say to support the implicit assumption that Google has the potential to really make a difference? Whats’s the logic to support our intuitions?…or will Google be just one more large non-healthcare company that puffs it’s chest, looks at the insanity of the current health care non-system, and then runs straight into the buzz saw of unaligned incentives and culture that have created the “immovable object” of the status quo.