Building the future of global health, together

Jul 09, 2026

The Open Health Stack Software Foundation will provide a new, community-led home for the open-source building blocks of global digital health solutions. Google is transferring the original Open Health Stack code and assets to the foundation and providing long-term support for the project.

Fred Hersch

Senior Product Manager, Google Health

Shravya Shetty

Distinguished Software Engineer, Google Research

General summary

Google is moving its Open Health Stack to the Linux Foundation to create a community-led home for global digital health tools. This new foundation will provide developers with open-source building blocks and a $3 million grant to help build AI-powered health solutions. You can now participate in this project to help bridge health equity gaps using global standards.

Summaries were generated by Google AI. Generative AI is experimental.

Bullet points

"Building the future of global digital health" explains how we're improving worldwide health access.
Google is moving Open Health Stack to the Linux Foundation for community-led development.
This new foundation helps developers build AI-powered health tools using global open standards.
A $3 million grant supports local startups and developers joining this global project.
These tools help bridge health equity gaps in low-resource areas across the globe.

Summaries were generated by Google AI. Generative AI is experimental.

Basic explainer

Many people around the world struggle to get the healthcare they need. Google is giving its health software tools to the Linux Foundation so developers everywhere can use them to build better apps. This project helps teams create AI-powered solutions to fix health gaps in their own communities. It makes sure these important tools stay free and open for everyone to use.

Summaries were generated by Google AI. Generative AI is experimental.

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An estimated 4.6 billion people worldwide lack access to essential health services. While mobile and AI have tremendous potential to help bridge the gaps, the reality is that global digital health infrastructure is fragmented, which limits the potential of these technologies to improve health outcomes, especially in low-resource environments.

That’s why in 2023, Google Research collaborated with the World Health Organization (WHO) to launch Open Health Stack, a suite of open-source tools to help developers build next-gen digital health solutions. Today, we're announcing the next step. Google is transferring the Open Health Stack code and assets to the Linux Foundation which will launch the Open Health Stack Software Foundation (OHS-SF), to provide a community-led home for the project.

Accelerating local, community-led innovation

The OHS-SF will provide a vendor-neutral, community-governed future for the essential building blocks for global digital health. Organizations who have expressed initial support alongside Google include the WHO, Anthropic, Microsoft, Endless Health, PATH and regional health networks in Asia and Africa. In addition, Google.org is providing a $3 million grant to support the long-term growth of the project.

The foundation is also introducing a program that will allow local startups, small businesses and developers from around the world to participate directly in its governance without financial barriers.

Building on global open standards

OHS-SF will give developers the building blocks to power AI-enabled digital health solutions to help close health equity gaps. The work is organized into three pillars: FHIR foundations which includes the original OHS libraries and extends these to make it easier to work with modern standards for healthcare data; a multi-platform toolkit for reducing time to deployment; and AI commons for collaborating on projects to advance safe, effective AI. Each pillar offers a different way for developers to engage, and all are grounded in global open standards for health and AI.

The there pillars: FHIR Foundations, Reference Toolkit, and AI Commons

Supporting healthcare developers worldwide

Over the last three years, an incredible global ecosystem of technical partners — like Argusoft, Ona, IntelliSOFT, IPRD Solutions, KushiBaby, Living Goods and many more — have deployed OHS-powered solutions in countries across Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia and Southeast Asia for a range of different use cases. Together with the broader ecosystem, we have hosted workshops to build capacity and stimulate local, standards-based innovation.

By transitioning the complete Open Health Stack to the global community under the Linux Foundation’s leadership, we are ensuring these critical building blocks are available to everyone and can act as the foundation for the next generation of health innovation.