Google Engineers to Assist With Health Care Site

By Paul Thomson :: 11:27 PM

Computer engineers from Google and other Silicon Valley companies will be brought in to help address issues plaguing the Obama administration’s HealthCare.gov site. The announcement of additional help for the site came after it had been down over 36 hours.

A problem with networking technology crashed the site on Tuesday, and prevented users from logging in and requesting information on new health insurance plans. While some users could get back online on Wednesday, many couldn’t access the site until Thursday.

A government spokesperson said that “dozens” of engineers will be coming from Google and similar companies. Their expertise ranges across the board for the site’s major problems, which include reliability, stability, and scalability.

Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has identified an end-of-November target for addressing the myriad issues with the site, and industry experts are concerned that even this new push of talent won’t help fix all of the site’s problems.

“They’re in over their head here,” said Sidney Burton, a consultant who works with healthcare companies and insurance carriers. “They may be able to shore up certain parts of it within that timeframe, but overall, the site and its underpinnings will still have issues well into next year.”

The HealthCare.gov site launched on October 1, and in addition to the 36 hour downtime earlier this week, it has experienced numerous other issues over the past month.