Google’s health division has reportedly undergone a significant reorganization, resulting in a downsized team and a streamlined focus on clinical and regulatory work rather than consumer-facing offerings.
According to the Insider report, nearly 20% of Google Health’s staff will be transferred to other teams throughout the company, including its search division and newly acquired Fitbit. Put into numbers, that’s about 130 staffers who have been reassigned so far, bringing Google Health’s head count down from about 700 earlier this year to near 570.
“We brought together some teams to combine expertise and focus our efforts on health and wellness,” Google Health said in a statement to Insider about its reorganization. “Google Health will continue to build products for clinicians, conduct research to improve care and make people healthier and to help ensure all health-related projects at Google meet the highest standards.”
In addition, the slimmed-down team has been restructured into three groups:
- The first of these will focus on clinical work, centered on developing Google Health’s core product, Care Studio, which aims to enable clinicians to perform Google searches on patients’ electronic health records. Said offering has been launched as a pilot with St. Louis-based Ascension, and was further expanded across the health system earlier this year.
- The second Google Health team will be in charge of Health AI, focusing on building new software tools to improve medical imaging and genomic analysis as well as algorithm-based screening for diabetic retinopathy.
- The third and final group will overlap with the clinical teams from the Fitbit and Google Fit divisions to manage regulatory, clinical and equity issues within the entire company.
The consumer apps and services would be left to the Fitbit division, which will still work closely with Google Health.