Meet the experts behind Google Health's healthcare technology advancements

Dr. Michael Howell’s career focuses on improving the quality, safety, and experience of care, including how technology can help improve health. A nationally recognized expert on healthcare delivery science, he has served on advisory panels for the Centers for Disease Control, Medicare, and the National Academy of Medicine. His writings, cited by other researchers more than 10,000 times, have had an impact on the field and are incorporated in several national guidelines. A pulmonary and critical care physician, he also spent many years caring for patients at Harvard and at the University of Chicago, where he served as Chief Quality Officer.

Ashley Sumner is a Burns and Plastic Surgery Nurse Specialist who has held several senior nurse roles in the NHS and the UK Private Healthcare sector. Throughout her career, Ms. Sumner has led the delivery of large-scale quality improvement and clinical IT deployment projects across hospitals and healthcare groups. In 2014, she joined a UK health technology organisation as Nurse Director for mobile clinical solutions and completed an MSc in Quality and Patient Safety at Imperial College, London, in 2015. Since joining Alphabet in 2017, Ashley has worked across functions supporting product development, deployment and partner engagement, leading on quality, regulatory affairs and clinical safety.

Dr. John Hernandez brings 30 years of clinical research, consulting, and commercial strategy experience to Google Health. Prior to joining Alphabet, he was Vice President of Global Health Economics and Outcomes Research at Abbott Laboratories, and Vice President of Clinical Research and Health Economics at Boston Scientific Corporation. At Google Health, Dr. Hernandez focuses on how to leverage data from connected biosensors, smartphones, electronic health records, and clinical studies to create a more patient-centric healthcare system.

Linda Peters brings over 25 years of regulatory affairs, quality, compliance and safety experience in healthcare. She comes to Google Health from the global medical technology provider Becton Dickinson, where she led the regulatory affairs and government affairs functions. Until recently, she also served on the board of the Medical Device Innovation Consortium, the first-ever public-private partnership focused on advancing medical device regulatory science. In this capacity, she teamed up with healthcare companies and representatives of the FDA, NIH, CMS, nonprofits and patient organizations to further patient-centricity in the development and review of new medical technologies.

Dr. Lisa Lehmann is eager to have a transformative impact on healthcare as part of the global reach of the Google Health team. Lisa was the Chief Medical Officer for the VA New England Healthcare System, where she was responsible for clinical operations for eight healthcare systems, developed a systematic approach to responding to veterans' social needs, and managed the regional response to COVID-19. Prior to this role, she served as Executive Director of the National Center for Ethics in Health Care for the Veterans Health Administration.

Mustapha Haruna has worked in Information Governance for over 11 years in NHS Acute Trust, Mental Health Trusts, NHS Commissioners and Department of Health and Social Care UK. During these roles, he has led IG advisory for procuring IT systems, deployment of technological solutions to aid healthcare, and run patient engagement forums on privacy and transparency. Mustapha has also provided lectures on data protection and privacy to the Royal College of Psychiatrists, Royal College of Nursing, and Public Health England.

Dr. Ivor Horn, MD, MPH, FAAP, is a nationally recognized leader in health equity, social determinants of health and healthcare innovation. Prior to her role at Google, Dr. Horn served as Chief Medical Officer at Accolade. Before Accolade, she served as Medical Director of the Center for Diversity and Health Equity at Seattle Children’s Hospital, and Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Washington School of Medicine. Dr. Horn is also a nationally recognized researcher with a history of funding from government and non-profit organizations to research the use of technology in under-represented populations. She has authored several peer-reviewed journal publications on health communication and health equity.