Google today announced a new Fitbit Web API to facilitate health providers’ access to their patients’ AFib data. Many Fitbit and Pixel devices can analyze users’ heart rhythms while they’re still or sleeping. Fitbit rolled out heart-health-tracking smartwatches with AFib detection in 2022. However, the device users previously had to export and share their Afib […]
Alphabet (Google)
Verily lays off 15% of workforce
Google’s (NSDQ:GOOGL) Verily announced this week that, as part of a refined strategy, it eliminated 15% of its workforce. Verily has more than 1,600 employees, so the layoff would be more than 200 workers, according to media sites. On Jan. 11, CEO Stephen Gillett issued a letter to all Verily employees. Gillett took over the […]
Verily receives $1B investment led by Alphabet, promotes president to corner office
Google’s (NSDQ:GOOGL) Verily announced today that it received a $1 billion investment led by parent company Alphabet. South San Francisco, California-based Verily plans to use the funds to expand its businesses focused on precision health. New capital will go toward a variety of its core initiatives. Those include real-world evidence generation, healthcare data, research and […]
Verily’s Onduo, Sword Health collaborate on virtual care
Onduo announced today that it entered into a strategic collaboration with Sword Health to broaden virtual care for diabetes and other conditions. Sword Health, a digital musculoskeletal (MSK) care provider, will work with Onduo by Verily, an Alphabet sister company of Google. The idea is to offer complementary solutions, broadening access to virtual care benefits for […]
How the cloud tools behind Google Maps and Photos can advance medtech
Alissa Hsu Lynch leads medtech strategy and solutions at Google Cloud, previously serving in executive roles at Johnson & Johnson and Bausch Health. As part of Medical Design & Outsourcing‘s ongoing series of conversations about the cloud’s contributions to the medical device industry and its future, Lynch offered her perspective from the Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) subsidiary’s […]
iRhythm plans silent AFib screening pilots, high-level hires and Zio Watch evaluations
iRhythm Technologies (NSDQ:IRTC) has big plans for 2022 and its remote external electrocardiogram monitors as the medical device developer gears up for growth. President and CEO Quentin Blackford is looking to hire an international general manager among other roles in the coming months, he told Medical Design & Outsourcing after presenting at this month’s 2022 J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, […]
Google, Varian partner on AI to boost cancer radiation therapy
Varian (NYSE: VAR) announced today that it is working with Google Cloud to build an AI-based diagnostic platform. The companies’ focus is on AI models for organ segmentation — a crucial, labor-intensive step in radiation oncology that can often turn into a clinical workflow bottleneck. It involves identifying the organs and tissues in diagnostic images […]
Google opening office near Mayo Clinic
Google announced today that it will open an office in downtown Rochester, Minn., to be close to Mayo Clinic. The tech giant plans to have an office up and running with a handful of workers as soon as possible, given the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, according to a news release posted on the website of the […]
Hologic and Google Cloud team up on digital diagnostics for cervical cancer
Hologic (NSDQ:HOLX) has entered into a multi-year deal to use Google Cloud’s machine learning and deep learning technologies with its Genius digital diagnostics system, a cytology platform that uses volumetric imaging data to identify precancerous lesions and cancer cells of the cervix. The machine learning and deep learning capabilities from Google Cloud will enable Hologic […]
Philips, Google, ResMed among companies joining digital therapeutics standards initiative
Major companies in the medtech space — including Philips, Google and ResMed — are among those joining the Consumer Technology Association’s new digital therapeutics standards initiative. “With the COVID-19 pandemic, we are seeing faster innovation across all aspects of digital health including digital therapeutics,” said Gary Shapiro, CEO of the CTA. “This field takes the […]
Why FDA put the pedal to the metal for radar and hummingbirds and why medtech needs Google
In this week’s episode of DeviceTalks Weekly, co-hosts Chris Newmarker and Tom Salemi dig into the recent successes by startups Circadia Health and Preceptis Medical, which both saw expedited approval from the FDA due to the pandemic. Circadia Health earned a spot on this year’s “20 medical device startups you need to know” list. Circadia […]
