Google Cloud Launches Gemini for Healthcare to Reduce Administrative Burden

Clinicians lose nearly 28 hours each week to paperwork and administrative tasks, according to Google Cloud, and administrative costs make up an estimated 25 to 35 percent of U.S. health spending, the American Hospital Association has said. Workers with employer-sponsored insurance now contribute an average of $7,471 a year toward family premiums, up 9 percent from last year, a KFF survey found in October.

Gemini for Healthcare pulls a patient's data from electronic health record systems such as Epic into a single summary, flags gaps or conflicts between records, reviews prior authorizations, checks insurance coverage and estimates costs. It can also search medical guidelines. The system reads but does not change patient records, leaving updates to clinicians.

John D'Angelo, who became CEO of Northwell Health in October 2025, said he believes fragmented information has contributed to some health care costs. "All the fragmentation of information in healthcare is what has led to, in my mind, some of the costs that have gotten away from us, and also overutilization," he told Fortune. As an emergency physician, he recalled treating patients without access to their full history. "I would treat people de novo, and the information is out there somewhere," he said. "So I'm either playing detective or I just have to assume." He said that could mean ordering a CT scan without knowing whether a patient had already had it four times for the same condition.

D'Angelo said Northwell has about 400 workers whose sole job is to contest insurance denials, overturning over 90 percent. "That's a big labor cost," he said. The product could also free doctors from time-consuming documentation. "Right now, for every 10 minutes a doctor spends with a patient, they're 20 minutes on the computer," he said.

Karen Hanlon, president of Highmark Health, which owns an insurer and the Allegheny Health Network hospitals, said clinicians told the organization that prior authorization was the top issue to fix. Highmark already automates 78 percent of approved outpatient prior authorization requests submitted digitally, allowing patients to sometimes get approval before leaving the office. "They don't have to take another day off work," she said.

Aashima Gupta, Google Cloud's global director of healthcare strategy, said nurses and doctors spend much of their day moving information between systems. "Humans are acting as an integration layer today," she said. "They didn't get into the profession to be glorified data-entry clerks."

D'Angelo said money saved on paperwork could go to community health workers. He and Hanlon said potential savings could come from catching illnesses earlier. D'Angelo said Northwell runs on a 1 percent margin at best. Faster records and notes could shorten wait times without overworking doctors, he said, letting offices with long waits see two more patients a day without extending hours. "It shouldn't replace the doctor or the nurse, but it should give the doctor or the nurse back to the patient," he said.