Google Bolsters Healthcare Cred With Chief Medical Officer Hire

Jacqueline Shreibati, M.D., the chief medical officer for medical device and artificial intelligence (AI) startup AliveCor, is joining the Google Health team, CNBC reported on Tuesday (Dec. 10).

David Feinberg, M.D. is heading Google Health, along with chief health officer Karen DeSalvo, M.D., a former Obama administration health official.

While still developing its underlying strategy, the Google Health team is developing tools that will assist doctors in searching medical records and research the role of technology in detecting diseases.

Shreibati will assist Google with its health research endeavors, a source told CNBC. The tech giant had been looking for health policy experts and doctors to advance the publication and application of scientific research.

Since Fitbit is remaining a separate entity from Google, it is not certain if Shreibati — who has a hardware background — will work with Fitbit. The Fitbit-Google deal is being probed by the Department of Justice as part of a bigger antitrust investigation.

AliveCor is an Apple rival in the medical wearables space, marketing devices that monitor people who are in danger of having an irregular heart rhythm — atrial fibrillation — which is a primary source of strokes. 

Shreibati, a cardiologist, was promoted in February to head AliveCor’s medical road map and was previously the company’s vice president of medical affairs.

“We are very lucky to have had Jacqueline at AliveCor,” AliveCor’s chief operating officer Ira Bahr said in a statement to CNBC. “She made invaluable contributions which will work to the company’s benefit for years to come.”

AliveCor has a history with Google. Google engineers have worked for AliveCor, and its former CEO Vic Gundotra was a Google senior vice president.

Google is working with Ascension, the second-largest healthcare system in the country, to help with “Project Nightingale,” which involves data from millions of people across 21 states. The data collected includes diagnoses, lab results and hospitalization records. Along with patient names and birth records, the data collected amounts to a complete health profile.