Google has just announced the release of its new Google Health service. They join a growing panel of online services (including Microsoft’s HealthVault and America Online founder Steve Case’s Revolution Health) designed to allow users to store and retrieve health information online. The search engine powerhouse brings an impressive pedigree of technological expertise that has engineered the likes of Google Earth, Google Maps, and Google search-driven commercial tools, all sizable successes in their own right. Now they toss their hat into the healthcare information arena.
The concept is compelling, in theory: Allow individuals to enter, transfer, and store personal health information in an online repository, and allow it to be accessed immediately when desired. Consultation for a complex medical problem at a new facility, for instance, could be facilitated without phone calls and requests for old records if such an online system could archive prior health records. An emergency room visit for a traumatic injury while you are incapacitated Voilá, and your health records are available online within seconds (provided you or your designate provide permission to do so). It avoids the usual phone calls to one or more medical records departments in other hospitals or doctors’ offices, which may or may not make them available, especially at off-hours, slowed by the human factor of retrieval and transmission by fax or other slower media. Privacy of information is maintained, in theory, accessible only by knowing your chosen username and password.
Google Health’s capacity for uploading of personal information is still rudimentary. To date, sources capable of interfacing with the Google Health service include the following:
- Medco, a pharmacy management service, allows people who obtain their prescription information and history that can be uploaded to Google Health.
- Quest Diagnostics, a nationwide clinical laboratory system, allows users to view laboratory results online if tests were performed in a Quest laboratory.
- National pharmacy retailer, Walgreen’s, like Medco, allows users to import prescription drug history from the pharmacy’s database.
In addition, there is a service to help convert hard copy medical records to digitized format, an online search service that automatically performs Web searches that provides information relevant to user health concerns, even a fee-for-service that allows nurses to extract relevant data from conventional medical records into a format usable on Google Health.
While the service itself is free to use, and despite Google’s announcement to not host advertisements, there are some potential hidden commercial advantages evident. For instance, the Cleveland Clinic has a strong presence. When Explore Health Services is selected, for instance, the Cleveland Clinic’s MyChart comes up among the first. This service, provided by the Cleveland Clinic, allows patients in their system to upload their medical records to Google Health. Look for doctors, and you’ll find that doctors affiliated with the Cleveland Clinic system apparently are already up and running with medical record systems interfaced with the services on Google Health.
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