Google Cloud & Mayo Clinic Announce Revolutionary Partnership To Improve Healthcare With Generative AI

Dec 30, 2023

Today, Google Cloud announced a landmark partnership with world renowned healthcare system, Mayo Clinic. Using its acclaimed technology suite and latest developments specifically in generative AI, Google Cloud will help the Mayo system scale its offerings with HIPAA compliant Enterprise Search capabilities through the Generative AI App Builder ("Gen App Builder"), enabling the organization to increase its prominence, efficiency, and impact.

Through Gen App Builder, organizations can develop a search ecosystem with advanced conversational capabilities, powered by sophisticated foundation models and backed by years of Google's research and development efforts. Enterprise search functions developed using these models are able to achieve a deeper comprehension of user intent via natural language processing, leading to an enriched search experience. Given the ability to understand the exact needs of users, these systems will deliver more curated and actionable responses than traditional search, thereby empowering users with a search function that provides quick access to and robust synthesis of otherwise large and complex data sets and content.

In the context of healthcare, this is revolutionary, as clinical professionals often rely heavily on data for a multitude of uses, ranging from navigating numerous patient records and medical histories in order to understand the patient's care journey, to sorting through multiple databases and academic literature to glean the latest information regarding treatment strategies, symptom management, and therapies.

BARCELONA, SPAIN - FEBRUARY 27: Thomas Kurian, CEO of Google Cloud, speaks onscreen during the first ... [+] keynote of day 1 of Mobile World Congress 2023 at Fira Barcelona on February 27, 2023 in Barcelona, Spain. (Photo by Joan Cros Garcia - Corbis/Getty Images)

In an exclusive interview with Forbes, Thomas Kurian, CEO and visionary for Google Cloud, explains: "We see AI tools and search helping to improve healthcare organization efficiency in a variety of ways: administrative and operational tasks; clinician and care team support; patient engagement; and research and development." Across these four categories, Kurian describes that the main vision for Gen App Builder and Google Cloud's AI offerings more broadly is simple: enable people to ask questions, understand the intent of users really well, and finally, refine the way information is collated and presented.

Kurian also thoughtfully explains that enterprise search using generative AI can empower clinicians with the means to quickly search, collaborate, and synthesize information across many different sources, formats, and dispersed silos, so that they can spend their time and expertise where it matters the most: with patients.

With this overarching and guiding principal in mind, Google Cloud is committed to transforming the practice of healthcare and how healthcare organizations access and understand information.

A demo of the Gen App Builder below shows how this powerful technology can be harnessed to create a novel search experience within an organization:

Mayo Clinic is one of the world's premier research institutions, most renowned for its broad clinical expertise, consistent innovation in clinical therapies, and bold leadership in medical research and development. The system cares for nearly 1.3 million people annually, with a specific focus on advanced and rare diseases that often require curated and innovative therapies. As the push towards more specialized care grows, the system is continuously striving to innovate and inculcate new technologies to improve its offerings, create scalable impact, and ultimately, become a beacon of ideal healthcare delivery in the community.

Cris Ross, Mayo Clinic's Chief Information Officer, discusses the organization's goals with embracing this technology and its longtime partnership with Google Cloud: "We have been prepared to take on new artificial intelligence technologies for a long time…and generative AI and Gen App Builder is remarkable because of the way it democratizes AI. Previously, you could do great things [with AI], but you would need to be a data scientist, or you needed to know how to write script…but not anymore. These tools allow anyone with a sense of judgment and the ability to create well framed queries to get really remarkable results."

This democratization and ease of use that Ross describes alludes to Gen App Builder's straightforward user interface. The tool was specifically designed in a way to enable developers to build apps without extensive coding or machine learning experience.

Ross also comments on Mayo's deep and fruitful partnership with Google Cloud over the last few years, explaining how the technology company has helped Mayo Clinic in a variety of ways, including: transitioning the majority of its data into the cloud, helping Mayo achieve better interoperability with the industry renowned healthcare data engine platform, powering Mayo's advanced research initiatives, and most notably, helping the healthcare organization continuously drive towards innovation in order to advance patient care.

The Mayo Clinic. (Photo by KEREM YUCEL/AFP via Getty Images)

Notably, both organizations are devoted to maintaining best practices in data security, patient privacy, and responsible innovation. Mayo will disseminate the technology slowly throughout its organization, ensuring thoughtful caution and meticulousness in its rollout. Google Cloud has also placed numerous guardrails in the development and implementation of its products. Specifically, Kurian describes the various methods by which the company fosters the responsible development of AI, including implementing advanced encryption methods to keep data private, cultivating responsible controls on training and data models, and ensuring that the ultimate stakeholders— in this case, the physicians and clinicians— are kept in the loop to ensure that the outputs meet their needs and standards.

Implementing AI tools and new capabilities such as enterprise search powered by Google Cloud's prowess in the industry will undoubtedly enable Mayo to unlock unique value for its clinicians and its patients. Notably, this tool will improve clinical workflows and augment the physician experience with regards to how data is obtained and synthesized, ultimately providing physicians with more time to be spent in delivering actual patient care and thereby, improving patient outcomes and experiences.

Undoubtedly, generative AI technology is here to stay, and companies that create thoughtful ways to use this technology, such as Google Cloud with Enterprise Search, have the potential to create significant and long-lasting impact. Through key partnerships with industry titans in healthcare such as Mayo Clinic, this impact could drive better outcomes and meaningful value for numerous communities and millions of patients globally. Therefore, many more such partnerships and collaborations can be expected in the years to come, as this technology, if developed and implemented in a safe, sustainable, and scalable manner, has the potential to change the way healthcare is delivered for generations to come.