Google Health: Your Personal Online Health Record

Filed in archive Miscellany , News on May 21, 2008

I'm not really jumping for joy that Google now has Google Health - offering your personal health record on the web.





I mean...I am all for getting medical help and information online, but putting your own health record online. Who will do that?

Google enters the field of personal health records with a leading online brand, deep pockets and a wealth of technical skills. In a two-month trial this year, the Cleveland Clinic found that its patients were eager to use the Google health records.

The pilot project, limited to 1,600 patients, was quickly oversubscribed, said C. Martin Harris, the Cleveland Clinic's chief information officer. Dr. Harris also said that when the clinic's online health records, introduced in 2004, were linked to the Google record the clinic's records were used more frequently by patients. "It positioned our personal health record more into an activity that they use every day," Dr. Harris said.

The Google record, he said, allows the user to send personal information, at the individual's discretion, into the clinic record or to pull information from the clinic records into the Google personal file.

Okay, yeah. Admittedly, all that is really convenient. However I cannot help but think of it security-wise. After all, health records are sensitive information. I have no problems with clinics and hospitals having electronic medical records. But putting such information online?

I don't know, I am just queasy with the whole idea - but I haven't checked this service yet, though I am a heavy user of most of Google's services.

But then, that's just me. It all remains to be seen whether general consumers will bite it. ;-)

Read more from The NY Times.

[Photo Credit: Google Health]