Google Health Goes Live

By Jason Lee Miller - Mon, 05/19/2008 - 16:58

All your health data are belong to us

During a nearly three-hour webcast this afternoon, Google revealed much of its "search factory," including the official unveiling of the Google Health service. Google Health leverages partnerships with medical organizations and pharmacies to help patients manage their health records online.

Google's Marissa Mayer says Google Health puts "users in control of their own medical records" by allowing users data portability. Mayer gave examples of why this capability might be needed. Travelers who are away from their doctors, or patients who change doctors or seek second opinions would be able to access their medical history online.

Though Mayer says there are "literally thousands of partnerships to forge and petabytes of data to move around," Google has already forged partnerships with many organizations around the country, including the Cleveland Clinic, Walgreens, Quest Diagnostics, and MyMedicalRecords.com.

The obvious question at the top most minds is about privacy. Google has set up a special Google Health privacy page to address this and promises that only users are in control of their own data. Only the user and authorized health organizations, such as the ones Google has partnered with, will be able to access the information.

Alongside the release, Google launched the "Go for Good" campaign with the Cleveland Clinic, a program that promotes walking for health. Participants who finish the program requirements can influence donations to health charities.

News Tags: Search, Google, Google Health

About the author:
Jason Lee Miller is a WebProNews editor and writer covering business and technology.

10 Comments

By John (WPN reader) - Mon, 02/23/2009 - 21:32

Google has too much power already

Google already has too much power, and I don't think it's appropriate to give it more. Medical records are something private and should remain this way.

By Hemroids (WPN reader) - Fri, 02/06/2009 - 00:05

From Google earth to Google health

I think all people are going to work at Google.

By health facts (WPN reader) - Wed, 10/22/2008 - 10:00

Great article

thanks for another great article Jason

By Guest - Sat, 06/28/2008 - 21:23

I think all our dataBASES

I think all our dataBASES will be belongs to them soon or later.

By HJS (WPN reader) - Mon, 05/26/2008 - 07:12

commercial "health organizations" are a bunch of crooks

The worrying phrase is :

"Only the user and authorized health organizations, such as the ones Google has partnered with, will be able to access the information."

There's no way I'm giving my health data to Google

By Anthony Smales (WPN reader) - Thu, 05/22/2008 - 04:52

Google health / NPfIT

The NHS has spent bllions on a project (NPfIT) which does much the same thing!

By Charles Douglas Wehner (WPN reader) - Wed, 05/21/2008 - 12:11

All Your Health Data are Belong To Us

I see that Jason Lee Miller is a fan of the famous pop song "All Your Oil is Belong To Us". It should have been a hit. There was a conspiracy against it.

However, in medicine there really are conspiracy problems. Files and x-rays go missing for "no apparent reason". The rate of data loss would not be tolerated in any other industry. However, medics seem to think it is normal.

In Germany there was a Professor Julius Hackenthal, who invented the "Hackenthal Coffer" (Hackenthal case). Patients were advised to put all their files in the box, and keep it at home.

This idea is a modern, Internet-based, version of the same thing.

Excellent.

Charles Wehner

By Free Traffic (WPN reader) - Tue, 05/20/2008 - 22:33

Privacy Window to the World

Access to personal health information by big G and their
partner organizations might lead to dangereous hacking
of human health data...

They can easily point who got a healthy liver, kindey, and
other organs... they can easily tell which one needs this
kind of medicine... and so on...

Voila!

They want to use this kind of scheme so they can easily target
those specific patients for their Adwords and Adsense Health
Related Ads.

They want to get more specific data from all the people in the
US, UK, Canada, and other countries to deliver their Ads.

That's very obvious if you just open your mind.

What can you say?

By bj (WPN reader) - Tue, 05/20/2008 - 17:58

Wall Street Weenies and Temptation

If Google really thinks that they'll be able to keep the lid on this info once the Wall Streeters and Insurance Companies realize the implications of having access to all that scrumptious information, they're Freaking Fools . . . or backroom dealing . . .

By Jonathan (WPN reader) - Tue, 05/20/2008 - 17:15

Health of Google

Personally I think that google already knows to much about to many people and things. I certainly dont want to give them any of my health information. Yea they say there is security etc but I dont trust them one bit.