Google is focused on getting correct health information into everyone’s hands.

Google Chief Health Officer Dr Karen DeSalvo talks about Google’s plans in global digital health, and shares stories of her own career trajectory,  in an interview with PULSE the Podcast hosts Dr George Margelis and Dr Louise Schaper.

Today the podcast airs Part Two of the interview in an episode titled Bringing joy back to medicine.

Dr DeSalvo was interviewed following the release of the Impact on Health Report 2025 and discusses the company’s extensive influence on global digital health including the Nobel Prize-winning AlphaFold.

She says there is an integral role for generative AI with opportunities to build capacity and augment care delivery.

“The science and the AI is moving quickly, whether that’s the science around improving factuality and groundedness, or the science around multimodal technology, we can bring all that data together to do a better assessment or a “360”, if you will, of a person’s health.”

Dr DeSalvo held a leading role as national coordinator for health information technology in the Obama administration, and also served as the New Orleans Health Commissioner following Hurricane Katrina.

“I worked in public health at the local and the national level and now I’ve had a lot more exposure to global public health and unfortunately, a very similar theme rings through. They tend to be pretty under-funded and under-resourced. And this is one of the incredible opportunities of generative AI to be able to help with some of those capacity gaps.”

The episode “When a Nobel Prize is only one of your achievements” is available now on PULSE, the Podcast