Google is not done with the health sector. This Thursday, the American giant made public its new avenues for establishing itself in this key market. The Californian firm relies in particular on its search engine Google Search to allow users – Americans at first – to find out the availability of appointments for health care providers, in the manner of what a company does today. like Doctolib.
“Although we are only at the beginning of the rollout of this feature […] we hope to expand features, functionality and our network of partners to make it easier for people to get the care they need,” said Karen DeSalvo, Google’s chief health officer. Describing Google’s “enterprise-wide health efforts” in a blog post, the leader says she wants to “integrate health into our products to meet the needs of people where they are”.
That’s not all. The American giant is also looking at how artificial intelligence (AI) and smartphones could participate in monitoring our health. Google now intends to make our smartphones serious medical diagnostic tools, thanks to their camera. If the company’s research progresses apace, photos from your device could one day help determine if you have diabetes, or the microphone could be used to probe your heartbeat.
Health in your hand
“To this end, Google researchers are studying the possibility of using photos of the outside of a person’s eye, taken using tabletop cameras in clinics, to detect diabetes-related diseases. “, we say on the side of Google. Greg Corrado, head of AI for health at the American giant, notes that the research has already yielded promising preliminary results. Especially since the American giant is working in parallel to allow photos taken from smartphone cameras to detect diabetes and non-diabetic diseases from photos of the external eyes.
“Although we are still in the early stages of research and development, our engineers and scientists envision a future where people, with the help of their doctors, can better understand and make decisions about health issues. health from their own home, ”says Google. The American giant is also studying how the built-in microphones of a smartphone could record heart sounds when placed on the chest.
Listening to a person’s heart and lungs is an essential part of a physical exam, but screening for problems such as heart valve disorders usually requires specialized equipment, such as a stethoscope or ultrasound, and an in-person assessment. . “We are currently in the early stages of testing clinical studies, but hopefully our work can enable people to use the smartphone as an additional tool for accessible health assessment,” writes Greg Corrado.