Inside Google’s secretive healthcare business

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Today in healthcare news: An inside look at the identity crisis facing Google’s secretive healthcare business, the toll of the pandemic on nurses, and why Sweden’s less-dense households could be key to its coronavirus strategy.

Google’s secretive healthcare business wants to organize the world’s health information, but insiders describe how turf wars and trust issues are hamstringing the operation

• It’s been nearly two years since Google revived its Google Health division.
• The new Google Health has big ambitions to tackle some of healthcare’s stickiest problems. It won’t be easy.
• It’s still battling fallout from public distrust stemming from a controversial data deal with the health system Ascension. It’s also lost out on some major deals as it tries to hammer out its road map, insiders told Business Insider.
• It’s not yet clear internally how Google Health fits in with the other health businesses within Alphabet, including the organization’s Google Cloud and Verily operations.

Read the full story from Hugh Langley and Blake Dodge here>>

Union finds that at least 213 registered nurses have died of COVID-19, more than half of them nurses of color

• National Nurses United, the country's largest nurse union, released a report Monday that found 213 registered nurses have died from COVID-19 and related complications, out of 1,718 total healthcare worker deaths.
• Of the registered nurses who died of COVID-19, 58.2% were nurses of color, including 67 Filipino American nurses and 38 Black American nurses.

Read the full story from Allana Akhtar here>>

A potentially overlooked factor in Sweden's coronavirus strategy: more than half of households consist of just 1 person

• Household transmission plays a significant role in the coronavirus' spread.
• The risk is especially high in crowded homes with more than one person per room, research suggests.
• Sweden never fully locked down, but the nation's large share of people living alone may have helped slow the virus' spread and lower the country's death rate.

Read the full story from Aria Bendix here>>

More stories we're reading:

• In a call overheard by NBC reporter Monica Alba, CDC Director Robert Redfield voiced his concern about Trump task force adviser Scott Atlas (NBC News)
• Universal Health Services has been hit by a ransomware attack (TechCrunch) 
• Inovio tanks 39% after pausing coronavirus vaccine trial, trading halted (Markets Insider)
• Meet the 24 most powerful people advising Trump on healthcare as the president vies for a second term (Business Insider)

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- Lydia