50 Most Influential Clinical Executives - 2022

DeSalvo leverages her background as an internist and informaticist to make information technology a critical tool in her mission to improve health outcomes and eliminate disparities. At Google, she advocates for a model that foregrounds clinical expertise, leading a team that provides guidance for research as well as new products and services. During the pandemic, as a part of the tech giant’s response team, she helped develop an aggregated dataset with more than 400 symptoms and health conditions—an approach to public health called “infodemiology,” focused on the online distribution of information. Before joining Google, DeSalvo served for nearly two years as national coordinator for health information technology during the Obama administration and as acting assistant secretary for health.