Google Cloud’s Aashima Gupta on Big Tech’s Platform Play in Healthcare

Aashima Gupta was a rising star in the financial technology world
at organizations including Fidelity Investments and JPMorgan
Chase, but after her father passed away suddenly due to health
reasons, she turned her technical talents towards improving
healthcare. After five years in leading technical roles at Kaiser
Permante and two years leading healthcare strategy at the API and
analytics company Apigee, she became director of global
healthcare solutions at Google Cloud through its acquisition of
Apigee. 

While historically big tech has had little insight into what is
happening on the ground within vertical markets – including
healthcare – that paradigm is shifting. As part of this
evolution, cloud infrastructure companies are tailoring solutions
to meet specific needs and advance digital transformation within
industries like healthcare. This is the crux of Aashima’s role at
Google Cloud where she focuses on applying Google Cloud
technology, machine learning, artificial intelligence, mobile and
APIs to help companies in the healthcare ecosystem identify new
care models, improve patient experiences, generate new revenue
streams and securely share data.

In this episode of Healthcare is Hard, Aashima talks to Keith
Figlioli about her journey from Fintech to Digital Health and
shares insight into Google’s strategy to transform healthcare.
Topics they discuss include:



The pace of innovation in digital health. Aashima
recounts her transition to healthcare and the biggest
differences with the pace of innovation. She had often dealt
with mission critical systems in past roles at some of the
world’s largest financial services organizations, but
recognized quickly after moving to Kaiser Permanente that she
was now dealing with life critical systems. She talks about the
shifts in culture and mindset that a career in healthcare
technology requires.


Google’s most recent healthcare news. Google’s core
mission is to democratize access to information, and its recent
announcements about integrating features for scheduling medical
appointments directly into search results shows how that
mission extends to healthcare. These new features aim to
address one of the most significant barriers to getting care:
the ability to find an appointment. Aashima discusses how these
new developments fit into Google’s larger vision for healthcare
innovation and the company’s ongoing efforts to expand
partnerships with third parties.


Democratizing AI in healthcare. As a platform that fills
a critical infrastructure role for organizations across the
healthcare ecosystem – from payers and providers, to life
science companies, tech vendors and more – Google Cloud places
an intense focus on empowering these companies through advanced
technologies like AI. With years of experience building,
deploying and maintaining machine learning for its own use and
incorporating that institutional knowledge into its cloud
platform, Google is helping to democratize AI and accelerate
healthcare innovation. As an example, Aashima points to
customers that can train AI models using 80% fewer lines of
code than they would need otherwise.


Responsible use of AI. Google recognizes the power of AI
and the equally powerful questions it raises about using it
responsibly – especially in healthcare. Aashima shares how
Alphabet CEO, Sundar Pichai, has been directly involved with
the company’s principles for responsible AI innovation. She
talks about how the company uses tools like “model cards,”
which describe AI algorithms in a similar way to nutrition
labels on food packaging, and how it’s pushing for these to
play a foundational role in the future of AI.



To hear Aashima and Keith talk about these topics and more,
listen to the full episode of Healthcare is Hard: A Podcast for
Insiders.