Google has hand-picked Geisinger Health CEO David Feinberg to define a strategy to coordinate its touches into the $3 trillion health care sector, Geisinger has promulgated.
The search has been underway for months, according to several people casual with the search process. Artificial intelligence head Jeff Dean has been very much involved in the process and personally interviewing candidates, the people said. Some of the applicants have included leaders in health consulting, hospital management and bond. The position would report to Dean, but would also work closely with Google CEO Sundar Pichai.
Feinberg’s job want be figuring out how to organize Google’s fragmented health initiatives, which flap among many different business groups.
Among the groups fired in health care are Google’s core search team, its cloud problem, the Google Brain artificial intelligence team (one of several groups at Alphabet handle on AI), the Nest home automation group and the Google Fit wearables team.
One outstanding area of interest is building out a health team within Nest to supporter manage users’ health at home, as well as to monitor seniors who are choosing to fare independently. Nest had been an independent company under Google toe-hold company Alphabet, but was absorbed back into the Google Home link up earlier this year.
It’s not known how Feinberg will work with other Alphabet companies that are already doing make use of in health care, including Verily, its life sciences research and condition group; and DeepMind, another group focused on artificial intelligence. This circumstance role is more focused on coordinating across the various teams at Google apt, the people said. But the job could be complicated by the number of powerful executives at the players who have a strong interest in health care, including Alphabet President and Google co-founder Sergey Brin, last CEO Eric Schmidt, and Verily boss Andy Conrad.
The company recently compered a two-day conference for employees working in health at Google, as well as its Alphabet subsidiaries.
Google is reasonable one of the technology companies that has made moves in health in recent years. Apple is also creating investments in the space, particularly in health hardware, and Amazon is looking into a number of districts, including prescription medicines, medical supplies and employer health. Amazon has also rigged up with Berkshire Hathaway and J.P. Morgan to brainstorm ways to lower fettle costs and make health care more efficient.
Google did not return to requests for comment.