Throughout my career in medicine, a central challenge has been connecting people — whether patients, families, trainees, or clinicians — to the right health information at the right time. Today at our annual health event, The Check Up, we shared how AI is helping to make healthcare more helpful, complex information more accessible, and clinician’s learning more impactful — all in collaboration with partners who are leading the way.
Partnering on rural health
Today we announced efforts for a series of AI initiatives aimed at making healthcare more accessible. As a part of this, we’re exploring work with leaders in Arkansas, including the Alice L. Walton School of Medicine and Heartland Whole Health Institute to help pioneer a model for rural health transformation.
We hope this work can serve as a blueprint for improving health outcomes nationally and globally by focusing on clinician education, care delivery and health research while building on our existing investments and collaborations in rural health. Nearly half of the world’s population lives in rural areas, contributing to the estimated 2 billion people in these regions who lack access to essential healthcare services — more than double the figure in urban areas.
Investing in clinician education
Having spent many years teaching at the bedside, I know today’s trainees will be the first to practice in a world fundamentally reshaped by AI. That’s why Google.org is committing $10 million to fund organizations that will collaborate to reimagine clinician education in the AI era, with the goal of improving high-quality, person-centered care. The Council of Medical Specialty Societies and the American Academy of Nursing are the first of several organizations who will support this work.
For us, that also means working to continuously improve products like Search where people ask more than a billion health questions every day. And it means using AI to make information more helpful and reliable, including for the next generation of healthcare workers.
On YouTube — where health-related videos have surpassed 1 trillion views globally — AI is creating new ways to support clinician learning. On eligible health videos, an “Ask’ button lets people interact with information more personally. A first-year medical student, for example, can ask to “explain this concept in simple terms,” instantly translating complex medical topics into accessible language they can understand and share with their communities.
We’re also experimenting with AI as a brainstorming partner to organize peer-reviewed scientific information and suggest ways to present complex information to broad audiences.
