Secure your Personal Health Records on Google Health
Posted on May 20, 2008 in Technology by Annie
Monday was a big day for Google, as its long-awaited effort to manage personal health records was launched. After 1 ½ year of development, finally on Monday Google Health was launched. Google Health is considered to be the latest entrant in the field of managing online personal health records.
Marissa Mayer, the Google Executive managing the health project said: “It’s a really exciting day for us. We’re really happy to be able to offer this service to all our users.” Google Health service enables the user to create their online profile which contains information like medical conditions, immunizations, test results, medication and procedure. User is also asked to give their basic information like weight, height, blood group and race. Using all the information given by the user Google Health gives customized medical information as well as it acts as central hub for storing medical records.
The main aim of Google Health is to enable its users to import their health information from the protected websites of care suppliers. The major competitors for Google Health in the field of online health records are Revolution Health, Microsoft’s HealthVault and Aetna’s SmartSource.
As per Google there will be no ads on Google Health and user’s personal information will never show on the search result. Google Health user can add their physician in their Gmail contact list. To utilize Google Health completely user need to give details about health history. Google Health is provided with guided keyword suggestion which helps the user to get health term suggestion on typing symptoms.
Till now there are only 8 partners for importing medical records. Half of the Google Health partners like Walgreens, Medco, Longs Drug Stores and RXAmerica cover drugs while other partners like Quest Diagnostics and MinuteClinic. Other 2 partners are hospitals: Beth Isreal Deaconness Medical Center and Cleveland Clinic.
On Google Health user can also find in-depth pages on specific health topics. When a user types his medical condition in the profile a reference link appears on the page. User can do in-depth research on the medical condition. These in-depth pages cover all aspects like causes, symptoms, treatments and preventive measures of the condition. Google Health also allows the user to link his/her profile to link with other online health services like iHealth, MyMedicalRecords.com, MyDailyApple, NoMoreClipboard, LiveStrong.com and ePillBox.info.
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