Dive Brief:
- Google Cloud has launched Gemini for healthcare, a version of its AI agent designed to be used by providers and payers in clinical and administrative settings, the company announced on Tuesday.
- The platform connects to a healthcare organization’s electronic health record, claims workflows and other systems to automatically surface patient records, prep paperwork and check insurance details. Google is betting those integrations will reduce clinician burnout and promote interoperability, according to the announcement.
- Gemini for healthcare is currently only available in preview. Early adopters include HCA Healthcare, Highmark Health, Northwell Health and Optum, among others.
Dive Insight:
Agentic AI are systems that can act independently and make complex decisions with minimal human oversight. Healthcare has invested heavily in agentic AI in recent years, as the tech has shown promise for alleviating administrative burden — a top contributor to clinician burnout — and automating workflows like prior authorization or revenue cycle management.
Tech giants like Anthropic, OpenAI and now Google have taken note, all launching specialized AI tools for the healthcare sector this year.
Google says its new platform, developed with the help of clinicians and insurers, can execute clinical and administrative tasks while meeting the complex privacy and security standards that the sector must comply with.
It also says its approach will help reduce administrative burden and save clinicians time, key considerations in a sector that faces ongoing workforce shortages and persistent burnout. Google also touts the platform’s ability to advance interoperability and ease data fragmentation challenges.
“The fundamental challenge in healthcare isn't a lack of information — it's the immense friction of making that data actionable across a highly regulated ecosystem," Thomas Kurian, CEO at Google Cloud, said in the announcement.
Google Cloud’s new platform relies on Google's own agentic system, Gemini, alongside an ecosystem of outside agents and data sources. The platform includes a “library of connectors,” according to the announcement, offering direct access to integrations with Epic’s and Oracle’s EHR systems, as well as hookups to federal standards from the CMS and the National Provider Identifier registry.
Google also partnered with other popular health tech vendors that specialize in specific clinical workflows. For example, users can leverage Suki’s AI scribe and GoodRx’s prescription pricing information.
The platform also works across Google’s own competitors in some cases — users can streamline communications across Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 and ServiceNow. The platform also enables users to pair AI models across Google, OpenAI and Anthropic under the same governance umbrella, according to the announcement.
Currently in preview with a select number of early adopters, the tool will eventually be available to all enterprise customers with per-user subscriptions or a pay-as-you-go model, though Google declined to share information about when the tool will launch more broadly.
