Google announced Tuesday new products and features that are aimed at healthcare applications. These include improved overviews for Google Search health queries, new medical records APIs and new “open” AI models focused on health.
Google claims to be using AI and ranking systems in Search to expand the “knowledge panels” answers for thousands of health-related questions. It also added support for healthcare queries on mobile in Spanish, Portuguese and Japanese. The company said that Search already offered knowledge panels for common ailments like the flu and the common cold. However, the update has greatly expanded the number of topics covered by the knowledge panels.
Google will also launch a Search feature called “What People Suggestion” on mobile devices in the U.S., to highlight content that users have shared about health conditions. What People Suggest, for example, will use AI to collect reports from forums on the web about common exercises that people with arthritis can do. What People Suggest is a feature that builds on Google’s YouTube personal health stories, and appears to be aimed at preventing people from leaving Search for Reddit or other sources of health information.
While people use Search to get reliable medical information, they also enjoy hearing from other people who have had similar experiences,” Karen DeSalvo wrote in an article. TechCrunch provided a blog posting. “We’re able, using AI, to organize different perspectives of online discussions into easy to understand themes, helping you quickly understand what people are saying.” Google said that these APIs will allow users to see data across apps and devices, as well as making it easier for them to access information on their phones. They will also help collect data from providers. DeSalvo explained that these APIs allow apps to read and/or write medical records like allergies, medications and lab results using the standard FHIR format. Health Connect now supports over 50 types of data across activity, sleep and nutrition, vitals and medical records. This will make it easier for you to connect your daily health data to data from your doctor. The feature will detect a loss in pulse, such as a primary cardiac arrest or respiratory or circulatory failure. It can also alert emergency services when you are not responding.
Google has also announced new open AI models called TxGemma for drug discovery, following the launch of a collection by the company. Gemini AI models in multimodal healthcareTxGemma will be released in a few weeks. Ivan covers global consumer technology developments at TechCrunch.
He is based in India and has worked for publications such as The Next Web and Huffington Post. You can reach him at im[at]Ivanmehta[dot]Com
View Bio
