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Review – Google Health

Posted by LauraJ in Health news, Social media No comments»

Google Health is my favourite online tool this month. Launched last spring, it is still in beta but has started to gain more coverage in the last few months while it expands and new partners join. Primarily, it’s an online platform that allows you to organise your health records in one place. Despite criticism from some quarters, this is still a growing area with 76% of Internet users interested in such access and 26% even willing to pay for such a service (Deloitte LLP Feb 2008). As usual, Google’s offering is the most well known, but there are similar services presented by its competitors – Microsoft’s HealthVault and Revolution Health to name two.

To begin you have to create a personal medical profile by inputting your age, weight, medical conditions, medications, allergies, and so on. Initially this sounds like a lot of work although once complete you start to see the advantages. Firstly, just the fact that all the records are in one place means you get a more rounded view of your health history, but thanks to the Google connection, each condition becomes reference linked to pages detailing symptoms, treatments, causes and preventions; as well as related news, Google Groups and search trends. This means that once you have been diagnosed you are pointed in the right direction for further information and perhaps more importantly, support networks of other sufferers.

Another feature is the ability to share your information with close family, other health professionals or even friends. To some this might be a step too far, but in case of emergencies this might not be such a bad thing. Quite often one of the first things a medical team needs to know is what medication a patient/victim might be on or what conditions they may be suffering from. Could you currently answer this about your close family members? 

The one thing that the service may not help with is the continued trend towards self diagnosis – since the service comes into it’s own after the diagnosis has been made. In fact, anecdotal evidence suggests that the self diagnosis trend might be evolving. Some doctors report that a new breed of patients are not content with turning up at appointments having researched their symptoms, but are now coming armed with their views on the treatment they need too.

It’s still relatively early days, so really a case of watch this space, but in principle I have no issue with the idea and think it makes a lot of sense. As well as the obvious benefit of simply having all the information in one place and being easily accessible, I like the fact that it can help people find a support system once they have been diagnosed. In addition, if Google is accountable for the relevant links more people might have a better chance of steering clear of the hundreds of sites carrying inaccurate information or better still, those self-appointed oracle types we all come across in forums – who can be as dangerous as they can helpful. Surely that cannot be a bad thing.