Can expertise from Big Tech make poor people healthier?

The gap between haves and have-nots in American health care isn't just driven by insurance and access to doctors. It’s exacerbated by a deep structural problem: Many poor people suffer from long-term ailments that the system has little financial incentive to treat. But now a New York City start-up thinks it can use Google-level tech savvy to help make progress on that challenge—and save the government money.

Called Cityblock Health, the startup is trying to create a billion-dollar business by doing health care for the urban poor the way experts say it should be done: creating primary care-based hubs in densely populated areas where patients can also get mental health services and connect to shelter, food and jobs. Cityblock plans to combine data and use it to offer intensely personalized care—a mixture of primary and behavioral health, and social services, with a lot of home care as well as telemedicine and other digital communication with patients.