Health strategies of Google, Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft – Business Insider

Dr. David Feinberg, the head of Google Health Reuters

Over the past year, Google has gotten deeper into healthcare, hiring Dr. David Feinberg to head up the Google Health division.

Feinberg's team is now responsible for coordinating health initiatives across Google, ranging from the company's search engine and map products, to its Android smartphone operating system, to more futuristic offerings in areas like artificial intelligence.

In his speech at a conferencein October, Feinberg said that one of his first main goals for the team will be to oversee how health-related searches come up, and work to improve that with the Google Search team.

Read more: We just got our first look at what Google's grand plans are for healthcare after it brought in a top doctor to lead its health team

Google Health is just one aspect of parent company Alphabet's healthcare strategy. Within Google, Google Cloud is working to ink cloud contracts with healthcare systems.Mayo Clinic in September signed Google as its cloud and AI partner.

There's also Verily, the life sciences arm of Alphabet, as well as Calico, its life-extension spinoff. Verily has its hands in projects spanning robotics to blood-sugar-tracking devices to work on addiction treatment. The company has also made investments in healthcare through its venture funds GV and Capital G as well as through Alphabet itself.

On Friday, Google reached a $2.1 billion deal to acquire Fitbit. The brand, best known for its fitness watches, also has a big business selling a health platform that combines coaching and fitness tracking to employers and health plans.

Beyond working with existing products, Feinberg's oversight includes the health team at Google AI, hardware components, and DeepMind Health. Both Google AI and DeepMind have pursued projects that analyze medical images like eye scans and scans of breast cancer cells, with the hope of aiding medical professionals in diagnosing and treating patients.

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Health strategies of Google, Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft - Business Insider