Next ’25 recap: Healthcare and life sciences

Google Cloud Next '25, held April 9-11 in Las Vegas, highlighted a profound transformation underway in the healthcare and life sciences sector, driven by the power of artificial intelligence and data. This year’s sessions and demos painted a compelling picture of how Google Cloud is enabling organizations – from providers and payers to biotech startups and public health agencies – to tackle their most pressing challenges. 

Some of the key themes we highlighted included accelerating research and innovation, using artificial intelligence and data to improve operational clinical workflows, support health equity, create data interoperability, and bolster security – all underpinned by AI advancements like Google’s Gemini and Vertex AI, robust data platforms, and secure infrastructure.

Accelerating research, innovation, and product development

Throughout this year’s event, the potential for AI to speed up discovery and bring novel solutions to market was a major focus.

• Cardinal Health shared its strategic “AI-First approach to product innovation,” using AI as the core foundation to offer personalized experiences, automate tasks, and accelerate time to market.

• The session, “Biotech innovation for startups” focused on how Google Cloud's cutting-edge AI models (Vertex AI) are empowering startups to rapidly develop solutions for critical challenges like drug discovery, diagnostics, and personalized treatment.

• We explored how platform engineering accelerates software delivery and reduces overhead in “Build a competitive edge with platform engineering: An expert panel”, which featured insights from organizations like HCA Healthcare on using these practices.

• We delved into Google Cloud’s Scientific Research tools, including AlphaFold3, developed by Google DeepMind and Isomorphic Labs, which can predict the structure and interactions of all of life’s molecules with unprecedented accuracy. The new AlphaFold 3 High-Throughput Solution, available for non-commercial use and deployable via Google Cloud Cluster Toolkit, enables efficient batch processing of up to tens of thousands of sequences while minimizing cost through autoscaling infrastructure. 

Enhancing patient and provider experiences

Improving care delivery through smarter technology and workflows was central to several discussions. Sessions like “Agentic workflows & modern data platforms" brought together healthcare providers Hackensack Meridian Health, HCA Healthcare, KakaoHealthcare, and MEDITECH to examine how AI agents, enhanced search, summarization tools, and collaborative partnerships are streamlining workflows, solving clinical challenges, and ultimately improving patient care.

Here are some highlights from this session and other announcements made at Next: 

• Seattle Children's Hospital’s Pathway Assistant improving clinical access to information: Seattle Children's Hospital is using Gemini’s advanced gen AI capabilities to improve clinical workflows. The organization’s new Pathway Assistant provides clinicians and others with quick  answers to critical clinical questions with the latest information, directly at the point of care. This innovative application of AI enhances decision-making, improves efficiency, and supports access to vital knowledge within the hospital's ecosystem.

• Hackensack Meridian Health transforms clinical documentation with gen AI: Hackensack Meridian Health is tackling the time-consuming task of clinical documentation head-on with the help of Gemini. Hackensack's solution built on this powerful technology listens to patient encounters and generates draft notes, freeing up clinicians to dedicate more of their valuable time to direct patient care. The result is a more efficient and accurate documentation process across the Hackensack system.

• Heidi Health delivers AI-powered clinical scribes: Heidi Health is using the power of AI to redefine clinical documentation. The health platform’s AI scribe passively listens to patient encounters and generates clinical notes in real time. This technological advancement promises to reduce the administrative burden on physicians, allowing them to prioritize patient interaction and ultimately enhance the accuracy and efficiency of clinical record-keeping.

• Highmark Health uses AI to optimize claims operations: Highmark Health is strategically employing AI to automate and streamline the claims processing lifecycle, leading to significant improvements in efficiency and accuracy. Furthermore, AI enhances Highmark Health's ability to detect and prevent fraud, ultimately contributing to a more robust and reliable system for both providers and members.

• Meditech EHR embraces AI agents: Meditech’s agentic healthcare vision introduces the concept of AI agents embedded within its EHR software to support clinicians in their daily workflows. These intelligent assistants will proactively help with tasks, offer timely decision support, and facilitate stronger patient engagement. Meditech's goal is to create a more streamlined, intelligent healthcare ecosystem that empowers clinicians to focus on what matters most – patient care.

• Manipal Hospitals optimizing nurse handoffs: Manipal Hospitals is embracing digital technology to support nurse handoffs — one of the most critical aspects of patient care. By implementing standardized digital processes, the hospital network is improving the transfer of essential patient information between nursing shifts. This focus on structured digital communication is a key initiative aimed at bolstering patient safety and fostering a consistent continuity of care throughout the patient experience at Manipal Hospitals.

Improving data interoperability and insights

Unlocking the value hidden within complex health data remains critical.

• Uncover the reality: Actionable AI solutions for healthcare: This panel of executive thought leaders from HCA Healthcare, Verily, and Google Cloud revealed the true impact of AI in healthcare. Experts shared real-world results, offering invaluable insights into the practical application of AI in patient care and provider satisfaction. The discussion also explored what AI solutions are being used right now, what challenges have been overcome, and how AI is improving patient outcomes, operational efficiency, and provider experiences.

• Streamlining data with FHIR: This solution talk offered a practical approach to accelerating innovation by simplifying the conversion and integration of various data formats (e.g., HL7 v2, CSV, and RDBMS) into the standardized FHIR format, reducing manual effort for healthcare IT teams and enabling loading into Google Cloud.

• AI search for healthcare ecosystems: This demo showcased how the power of Vertex AI Search for Healthcare, including new multimodal gen AI capabilities, is transforming unstructured medical data – clinical notes, research papers, and patient records – into actionable insights, accelerating research and improving patient care by unlocking critical hidden information.

Advancing public health and health equity

We also highlighted technology's role in addressing broader population health challenges and disparities.

• Personalizing public health and human services: This breakout session explored how cloud, AI, and data analytics can improve public health by streamlining eligibility determination, automating administrative processes, and tailoring interventions. Speakers from the State of Arizona Healthcare Cost Containment System (SOTA), Wayne State University, and the State of Colorado shared stories of support and care enabled by these technologies.

Experiencing the future: HCLS demos

The Google Cloud Showcase provided tangible examples of many of these innovations:

• Leverage AI search capabilities to transform healthcare ecosystems: This demo explored how Vertex AI Search for Healthcare is helping unlock insights from unstructured medical data.

• Accelerate life science innovation with Google Cloud: This demo showcased AI's impact on early-stage research, target identification, virtual screenings, clinical trials, and patient recruitment.

The road ahead

Google Cloud Next '25 demonstrated that AI and data are not just enhancing but fundamentally reshaping healthcare and life sciences. From accelerating the discovery of new therapies with partners like BioCorteX to improving care delivery with providers like HCA Healthcare and advancing health equity with organizations like DriveHealth, the potential is immense. At Google Cloud, we’re committed to providing the secure, intelligent, and interoperable platform needed to harness this potential, empowering the healthcare and life sciences community to build a healthier future for all.