Google Health Initiative To Appear In Early 2008!

In the beginning of October, Microsoft launched Healthvault an online resource where you can collect, store, and share health information.

At the Web 2.0 San Francisco conference, Marissa Mayer said to "expect a lot of activity in the coming months," as Information Week informs. One of the known and most exciting upcoming initiatives is the Google Health Initiative that is expected to appear by early 2008. Through this, Google will bring its immense data storage and organization capacities to the area of medical care and patient records.

Marissa mayer: "If you look at health care, there's already a huge user need, people are already using Google more than any other tool on the Web to find health information. And the health care industry generates a huge amount of information every year. It's a natural core competency fo us, to understand how to organize all that data."

Philipp Lenssen had the first Google Health screen shots and information on each.

The "Allergies" tab. The "Add an Allergy" box suggests "e.g. penicillin."

You can add a procedure or surgery on this page. As an example, Google provides "appendectomy."

The "Test results" section. You can add e.g. "cholesterol LDL".

The "Add an immunication" interface does not allow free-style text input, but restricts you to a selection box instead. Available entries include "Diphtheria, tetanus toxoids, acellular pertussis vaccine (DTaP)" or "Hepatitis A vaccine."

The "Age, sex, height…" page collects various personal information such as date of birth, gender, ethnicity, blood type, weight, or smoking habits. One of the questions asked is, "Do you drink alcoholic beverages?" Another question is, "Have you smoked more than 20 cigarettes in your lifetime?" Google explains that they ask for your date of birth to "keep your age up to date and show the most relevant guidance."

The "Family history" dialog lets you add a relative and their respective conditions. The selection box includes entries like "Husband", "Wife", "Mother", "Father", "Son", and Google provides the condition example "diabetes."

On this page, you can "add a doctor". Our current unnamed sample patient has no medical contacts. You can search the "Google Doctor Directory" to find contacts.

"There are two tabs to be seen in Google Health: Profiles and Medical Contacts. The profiles tab has several sub-sections, including "Services and health guide," "Conditions & symptoms," "Medications," "Age, sex, height…" and "Family history."

A privacy policy at the bottom disclaims that "Any information you enter will remain private. Google will not share it with anyone without your permission."

This "Conditions & symptoms" dialog includes an auto-completion feature, just like other input boxes in Google Health. You enter "head", and Google suggests "Head and Neck Angioedema", "Head Injury", "Head Pain" and more.

The "Services and health guide" section reads: "Get the most out of Google Health – If your medical providers or pharmacy offer secure downloading of medical records, you can find and add your records to a profile. You can also browse for websites that connect securely to Google Health and provide services for managing your health care."Under the headline "Google health guide" this explanation follows: "When you add some information to your profile, Google Health will search trusted medical sources and create a health guide targeted for you. … Google Health will check for relevant updates to your guide whenever you add new information to the profile." You can use the health guide, Google writes, to learn about drug interactions, treatments, tests and preventive measures.A side box warns, "Be sure to discuss questions about your medical care with your doctor or medical provider before making changes," and a footnote reads, "Built in collaboration with www.safe-med.com".

Google Health Logo Source: Thome Vincent

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