Google is making a significant investment in Google Health. But for once, Google is coming late to the party, writes JOHN COLLINS.
GOOGLE'S MISSION to "organise" the world's information and make it "universally accessible and useful" has been extended to health matters, with the launch of its Google Health service.
At its most basic, Google Health ( www.google.com/health) is an online patient records system that the search engine announced it was working on late last year.
Registered users of the service can manually input details of their medical history or automatically import information from a limited list of American hospitals and healthcare companies with which Google has a relationship.
They include Quest Diagnostics, the US firm which recently won a contract with the National Cancer Screening Service to analyse 300,000 Irish smear tests a year.
The site also offers a search engine for health information.
In the 10 years since Google launched on an unsuspecting web, it has become a hugely profitable household name.
Little wonder that its move into health has attracted so much attention, particularly around privacy concerns, but for once Google seems to be coming late to the party.
A number of specialist companies already operate in the space including WebMD and Revolution Health, while last year Microsoft launched its HealthVault service (www.healthvault.com) which is similar to Google's.
One of the main pluses of Google's service, compared with Microsoft's, is that it has an excellent search facility, says Damien Mulley, an internet consultant who has used both. "All the information is from trusted sources versus a general Google search when you can't be sure how accurate the information is," says Mulley.
A search for "dizziness" on Google Health returns an article from the Mayo Clinic as the top result but the same search on the general search engine points to an entry on the online encyclopedia Wikipedia.
After travel, health is the industry that has been most affected by people's increasing use of the web to inform themselves. But Google Health and similar services raise serious concerns about privacy. Personal data is regularly compromised online but the sensitive nature of medical records raises the stakes even higher.
Google's approach is to give control to the consumer.
"How many of us have touched, or even seen, our medical records? In this day and age of information, isn't it crazy that you don't have a copy of your medical records under your control? You could use those records to develop a better understanding of your health and ultimately get better care. It's your data about your own health - why shouldn't you own and control it?" Marissa Mayer, a Google vice-president, wrote on a company blog.
The Office of the Data Protection Commissioner points out that legislation around the protection of medical records is extremely stringent and will present challenges for the internet company.
The service will have to be "fully consent-driven" and users of the service will have to be fully aware of how their information is being used and shared, explains Gary Davis, assistant data protection commissioner.
He agrees with Mayer, however, that it is desirable to put the patient in control.
"What Google is doing could be a good model for handling health information - it puts the individual in control of their own information, not the health system," says Davis. "If it is done right, it could be very successful."
Google has also ruled out running adverts on the service. If it had not, Davis says this would cause him concern.
Until recently, perceived wisdom was that electronic patient record systems would be led by hospitals, but with collaborative internet technologies becoming more widely used, that is changing, according to Howard Beggs, chief executive of Irish software company Helix Health.
"My daughter is 11. She's never been to the hospital but everyone sees their GP and pharmacist," says Beggs. "Patient records should be driven from primary care."
Helix Health claims to have its software in 60 per cent of Irish GPs and 70 per cent of retail pharmacists. It has been trialling an electronic prescriptions system which could form the basis of a "summary care record", according to Beggs, and ultimately feed into the Google or Microsoft systems if they launched here.
Currently Google is providing the service only to US residents. When logging into the service for the first time, a prominent disclaimer points out that the site does not offer medical advice and is only an information source. It also says Google Health is for residents of the US only, but there are no technical barriers put in place to stop overseas users logging in.
In pre-launch testing the combination of Google and health was a popular one. The Cleveland Clinic in the US has had online patient records since 2004 but in a two-month trial where the information was available through the Google service the records were used far more frequently. This is one of the advantages that Google has over its competitors - by placing health management alongside other applications such as e-mail and search, it becomes part of their daily routine.
Google is making a significant investment in Google Health. With its deep pockets and thousands of creative software engineers, in another 10 years it could be as synonymous with health as it currently is with the internet.