Google Health: Organizing your health info
March 1st, 2008 | by Jose Miguel Cansado |Marissa Mayer, VP Search & User Products at Google, announced in their official blog that Google is launching an initiative to put the Internet at the service of our most important asset, our health. Google is reaching agreements with universities and other medical institutions to upload the medical records of a number of volunteers. The users will be able to manage their personal health records in the web, and have them immediately accessible to doctors, when required. The goal is to organize health information so that it is useful to the individuals.
Eric Schmidt gave a keynote speech at the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society Annual Conference in Orlando, on Thursday. See video just posted by Google on YouTube, including a demo:
While Google’s is not the first initiative on this topic - Microsoft launched HealthVault in October -, the buzz created around its announcement is a symptom that we would all dream of having such a system in full operation and widely adopted by doctors and hospitals. Some blogs have tagged the annoucement as “vaporware” being not yet available, yet Google’s incredible reputation to build great products gives them a good chance to make this Service a success and drive a common standard to share records within the health community.
No doubt Internet can be a great tool to efficiently manage fundamental, sometimes neglected, personal medical history, as well as to provide more accurate, relevant health information. Hope that Google Health, and their competitors, will make this Service a reality.
