Google Returns to Healthcare

Many old timers will remember when Google Health was shut down and Google mostly got out of healthcare (although they certainly argue that many people turn to Doctor Google for health information). I wrote a lot about Google Health over the years. I was sad to see Google out of healthcare, but figured it was only a matter of time before they returned. However, I didn’t expect them to return the way they did.

Google just announced a new company called Calico that will focus on health and well-being. The announcement is light on details, but the various news outlets are saying that Google is trying to take on aging. No doubt Google has been known for crazy ideas, but trying to combat death might be their biggest challenge to date.

It’s also interesting that the new Google healthcare company will have Arthur Levinson as the CEO and a founding investor. Arthur Levinson is also Chairman and former CEO of Genentech and Chairman of Apple.

I love this quote from David Brailer from the LA Times: “Extending life is about as high as it gets on the human scale,” Brailer said. “It’s obviously a profoundly important goal.”

This investment and also other investment by rich tech entrepreneurs reminds me of this post I did from CES in 2012. In the post I talk about John Sculley and how it’s interesting how these older ex-CEOs are so interested in healthcare. I guess this is part of that trend.

About the author

John Lynn

John Lynn is the Founder of HealthcareScene.com, a network of leading Healthcare IT resources. The flagship blog, Healthcare IT Today, contains over 13,000 articles with over half of the articles written by John. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 20 million times.

John manages Healthcare IT Central, the leading career Health IT job board. He also organizes the first of its kind conference and community focused on healthcare marketing, Healthcare and IT Marketing Conference, and a healthcare IT conference, EXPO.health, focused on practical healthcare IT innovation. John is an advisor to multiple healthcare IT companies. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can be found on Twitter: @techguy.

   

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