Google Health Public Release
I mentioned Google Health before, but they have now opened their doors to the public and it’s an interesting service. It can use preset information to help you find what ails you, but more importantly you can keep track of and manage your medical history. There’s even options to import your history from your doctor’s office or pharmacy (Walgreen’s is already a partner).
The guys at Google explain it much better via their blog post about the release, and here’s a quick quote from the post:
Google Health aims to solve an urgent need that dovetails with our overall mission of organizing patient information and making it accessible and useful. Through our health offering, our users will be empowered to collect, store, and manage their own medical records online.
Take a look at the blog post to get a better idea of why Google has entered the Healthcare world and what they think their involvement will bring to you.
I’ve liked the way Google has handled my information so far and see no reason why I wouldn’t use Google Health. There may be privacy concerns for some people and those are understandable – but Google does allow for quite a bit of privacy control between itself and the 3rd party services. Since this service is fairly new, those 3rd party options are still limited (and medical facilities aren’t known for their quick uptake of technology) so it may be a little bit before all your records are able to be self managed.
An interesting feature not clearly documented is that you can set up profiles for other people. This would be very useful for people with children or older family members who can’t keep track of these kinds of things themselves. Being able to manage your children’s medical records this way would seem to be extremely beneficial considering how many doctors visits children have as they are growing up.
I don’t go to the doctor very often and with changing insurance I’ve switched doctors a few times already. Having my current medical and dental records in a self managed location would really help. Hopefully it won’t be long before other medical practicioners and medical database systems will allow for linking to pull this information.
Also, like the rest of Google’s services, this one is free as well.
UPDATE: Looks like Google Health opening is pretty popular. Here is a good rundown of the services from Google Blogoscoped.
UPDATE 2: Excellent rundown and balanced article from SocialButterfly.
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