Google Health Dismantling As Vice President Moves to Cerner

Google is dismantling its health division as its vice president, David Feinberg, M.D., leaves to become the chief executive officer and president of electronic health records (EHRs) company Cerner in October.

Google Health was formed in 2018 to organize Google’s health efforts. It developed technology solutions to enable care teams to deliver better, faster, and more connected care. The team worked on products and features to empower people to be healthier with the information, assistance, and connections to act on their health.

In June, it was announced Google Health was downsizing and moving employees to Fitbit as part of a reorganization strategy. More than 130 employees within the division were moved, leaving about 570 employees on the health team.

During Feinberg’s tenure with Google Health, the division helped build contact tracing software for the COVID-19 pandemic. But the software has not performed as well as was expected. Feinberg also worked with Google’s YouTube to ensure it provided more accurate information for physicians and other care givers. Over the past year, the division expanded Care Studio, built with Ascension, to help physicians better navigate EHRs.

The projects and teams that comprise Google Health will spread across different parts of Google. The clinician team building a tool for physicians to more easily search health records, will report to Feinberg’s boss, Jeff Dean, the head of Google’s research division. The health-AI group working on projects like medical imaging will report to Yossi Matias, vice president of search and AI.

“Google deeply believes in the power of technology to improve health and wellness and we have increased our health investments across the company,” a Google spokesperson told Insider. “This has included developing projects within Google Health, launching and expanding health-related features on Search, Maps, and YouTube that reach billions of people, and welcoming Fitbit.”