Google rolls out new search tools for health information on Medicare services, languages spoken by providers

Google is introducing new search features to make finding health information more accessible. The new search features build upon the tech behemoth’s efforts to offer “timely and authoritative” health information to empower people in their healthcare journeys, Budaraju wrote. The features augment other health-related consumer tools introduced by the company this year, including labeling COVID-19 vaccination sites on Google Maps and offering self-assessments for mental health conditions like anxiety and depression through Google Health. While the tech giant previously took a siloed approach to healthcare, the company has focused this year on weaving health efforts into its existing business lines. Despite two reorgs in the Google Health division this summer and loss of department chief David Feinberg, M.D., to Cerner, Chief Health Officer Karen DeSalvo, M.D., said at HLTH 2021 this October that the company isn’t scaling back its healthcare efforts, but is simply adopting a broader strategy. “I want people to understand—from the moment I walked in the door, my remit, my work, has been not only to think about how we’re going to help the healthcare sector but what are we going to do to see that there’s authoritative information on all of our platforms,” she said. “It’s quite frankly one of the things that’s been most exciting to me about the company because we know that we can reach literally billions of people and give them good information to help them make better choices about their health or to navigate their care journey.” For investors and entrepreneurs, the headlines signal choppy waters ahead—venture capital dollars are slowing, startups are raising less money this year as investors remain cautious, valuations are down and public companies have seen their shares drop by double-digits amid market volatility. “I think this is one of the best times to be starting a company and one of the best times to be building responsibly,” said Hemant Taneja, managing partner at digital health venture capital firm General Catalyst said Wednesday at Collision 2022, a tech conference taking place in Toronto this week. Digital health and health tech still have significant value going forward, analysts say. Investors point out that digital health companies have stronger fundamentals than companies in the dot-com bubble. Digital health had a breakout year in 2021, with startups raising an eye-popping $29.1 billion across 729 deals, according to Rock Health, a venture fund dedicated to digital health. Digital health startups banked $6 billion in the first quarter of 2022—an eye-popping number compared to just three years ago—but investment fell significantly behind the $7.3 billion raised in the fourth quarter of 2021 and the trailing twelve month quarterly average of $7.1 billion, according to Rock Health. ‘Are you fundamentally a business that is going to generate great economics and profit?’ That’s a cultural shift companies have to go through,” Taneja said. These industry transformations are where great companies are going to start with mission-driven founders in this era,” Taneja said. It’s going to be about companies that are lean, mean, focused, and doing fewer things better,” he said. Digital health startups banked record-breaking $29.1B last year. “We’re seeing a shift overall in the environment to making sure that the companies out there are providing discrete value to customers,” Sunny Kumar, M.D., a physician and partner at GSR Ventures, told Fierce Healthcare in an interview. GSR Venture invests in early-stage digital health companies. Healthcare is more resilient in a period of downturn, but the trends we’re seeing today, whether recession or inflation, is going to affect every single large enterprise, whether health systems, pharma and device companies. Jun 23, 2022 04:45pm Jun 23, 2022 04:00pm Jun 23, 2022 03:38pm Jun 23, 2022 03:25pm On Sunday, The Spokesman-Review reported that a draft Office of Inspector General report has flagged serious patient safety risks with the new EHR system. The Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) will push off deployment of a new electronic medical records system to additional medical facilities until 2023 to address outages that have plagued the software at current sites. The VA had planned to deploy the new health records software, which was developed by Cerner, now owned by Oracle, at the Puget Sound VA Health Care System, including American Lake and Seattle VA Medical Centers, this August, but will now push that project to March 2023 instead, a VA spokesperson confirmed. Plans to deploy the platform to the VA Portland Health Care System at the Portland and Portland-Vancouver VA Medical Centers has been delayed from this November to April 2023. "VA has consistently communicated that it will review each site’s readiness for deployment to ensure a successful and safe transition to the new EHR," the VA spokesperson said. On Sunday, The Spokesman-Review reported that a draft VA Office of Inspector General report has flagged serious patient safety risks with the new system. The date was changed to allow Oracle Cerner to put important system enhancements in place and make the necessary improvements to ensure system stability, securing the 99.9% uptime Service Level Agreement (SLA) currently contracted, as well as fix outstanding issues to address research workflow challenges," the VA spokesperson said. Deborah Hellinger, vice president of global corporate communications at Oracle, said in a statement that Oracle engineers have already been on the ground making technical and operational changes, "with an emphasis on patient safety, to ensure the system exceeds the expectations of providers, patients, and the VA." "We intend to bring substantially more resources to this program and deliver a modern, state-of-the-art electronic health system that will make the VA the industry standard. Under new legislation headed to President Joe Biden's desk, the VA will be required to submit regular reports to Congress about the performance of its new $16 billion medical records system, including incidents that risk patient safety. The new EHR system, developed by Cerner, now owned by Oracle, was first rolled out to Mann-Grandstaff VA Medical Center in Spokane, Washington, in November 2020, following two monthslong delays to address the department's information technology infrastructure and training and respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. In May, VA Secretary Denis McDonough told the House VA Committee that he's “very concerned about execution of the program to date,” but will press ahead with the EHR rollout, Federal News Network reported. McDonough said the new EHR from Cerner has experienced five shutdowns since March 3, the first of which was so “egregious” that the company’s CEO issued a signed apology, the media outlet reported. "VA is requesting that Oracle Cerner develop an execution plan to put this regular testing and confirmation of resiliency in place," officials said.