I have blogged a lot about Google and healthcare. Today Google allowed people to peek into its efforts a little. Google Blogoscoped is carrying a number of screenshots of Google Health, or rather a prototype of Google Health. Essentially the site is a portal to health information and seems to have some personalization features, e.g. “Medical Contacts”. The thing that jumped out at me; the site collects personal information (age, weight, “do you smoke”, etc). It is easy to see it being extended to include personal medical records and then run algorithms to suggest treatments or flag potential issues. That’s still a ways away, and issues with privacy and ownership continue to remain important, but this is an important first step. I look forward to playing with the site when it goes live.
Google Health slowly coming out of the closet
I have blogged a lot about Google and healthcare. Today Google allowed people to peek into its efforts a little. Google Blogoscoped is carrying a number of screenshots of Google Health, or rather a prototype of Google Health. Essentially the site is a portal to health information and seems to have some personalization features, e.g. “Medical Contacts”. The thing that jumped out at me; the site collects personal information (age, weight, “do you smoke”, etc). It is easy to see it being extended to include personal medical records and then run algorithms to suggest treatments or flag potential issues. That’s still a ways away, and issues with privacy and ownership continue to remain important, but this is an important first step. I look forward to playing with the site when it goes live.
Further reading
New York Times
Healthcare search continues to scorch