New Google health partnerships, mental health study

Google is spending billions upon billions on developing artificial intelligence and that focus has spilled into its health efforts. As Google spends on big picture-LLM development, it recently inked a few health deals that will help feed the AI data.

Google Cloud this week announced a new deal with InterSystems, a data technology company that manages a large percentage of U.S. health records. The company will develop health data pipelines for Google customers to support health applications built on its Cloud.
Google also has a new deal with with b.well, a company that builds tech that makes it easier for consumers to access their health records. It's not obvious what they're working on, but in a release, Google executive Rishi Chandra suggests the deal will help "expand new Fitbit health capabilities." This deal feels related to the government-led h ealth tech ecosystem effort in which Google and b.well both pledged to build patient-facing apps that "empower patients to retrieve their health records." Health records sucked into the Fitbit app and interpreted by the the company's forthcoming AI health coach? Seems plausible!
This one's not AI, but a paper last week detailed Google-backed mental health research which tracked the smartphone usage of 10,000 participants. The findings "reveal weak or null associations between smartphone use and mood." I'm excited to see this study read out as I covered its launch over three years ago. It feels like eons in tech time doesn't it? Since then, there's been an explosion in concern about what new technologies are are doing to mental health. On another note, the study was launched through Google Health Studies, a research app that I haven't heard anything about lately. What happened?
In case you missed it, Verily, another arm of the Alphabet octopus, made its own intriguing announcement at HLTH.

overheard

Microsoft scientific leader stakes stand on DEI

Brittany Trang writes: Microsoft chief scientific officer Eric Horvitz took a strong stance on diversity and equity in health AI during a National Academy of Medicine panel on Monday.

"Despite political whims, we must face the equity and diversity challenges in AI development and deployment," he said, referencing a study he'd done years earlier on predicting patient readmission based on the onset of hospital-associated infection. "We found that race and zip code, they emerged as strong predictors of outcomes — not because they should be predictors, but because they reflect structural inequities in access and outcomes over decades."

He went on: "It's tempting to exclude such variables and say our systems are blind to them, but that hides disparities. Rather, it helps to address them, so we have to study and expose disparities with the design systems that recognize and mitigate them and build toward equitable care across diverse populations. I'll just end by saying, equity in AI doesn't mean treating everyone the same. It means ensuring high quality care for all, regardless of background or circumstance."

artificial intelligence

Nobody owns the scribe market

10-scribe_market_leaders-102125-scaled

Venture capital firm Menlo Ventures has a new "State of AI in Healthcare" report including useful market share data for AI scribes. The report also concludes that leaders consider AI scribes a commodity: Large health systems are "just as likely to switch vendors as to stay with their current scribe" over the next three years, and 67% of outpatient providers indicated they were likely to switch in the same time frame.

Menlo's data comes from August and September 2025 surveys of over 410 "technology decision makers" at provider organizations. The report also has insights on the us of AI by payers and drugmakers.

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