The Prognosis on Google Health is Good: A Closer Look

Google Health launched this week and after playing with the service for an hour or so, it's definitely apparent that the service is in beta. Nevertheless Google Health's general prognosis looks good. Here is how the service checked out.

Google Health, in its beta state, offers four tools. The tools are create a Google Health profile, import medical records, explore online health services, and find a doctor. If you already have a Google username you don't need to create a new one for Google Health.

To the Examination Room We Go With Google Health

The first thing I did was have Google Health step me through importing medical records from pharmacies I had pre-existing online accounts with. I was presented with a very short list of eight companies, Walgreens being the only one on the list that I've ever actually used.

I clicked the "Link to profile" button underneath the Walgreens logo and was whisked away to a splash page where I basically needed to log in to my Walgreens.com account and agree to share my information with Google, and clicking accept. Easy as that. I was then directed back to Google Health.

I was interested to see what kind of dirt Walgreens had on me. After all, these are my all-important medical records, right? Well, it turns out that I'm now privy to a list of medications I've been taking from Walgreens. I already knew about those.

Google Health didn't know about any of my medical conditions (does that mean Walgreens doesn't either?) so I had to enter those manually. I guess that if and when Google's able to hash out a deal with my doctor's office, I'd get access to a lot more information. The connection with your doctor's office is where I think this service could really shine.

A Prescription for Google Health

My doctor is relatively progressive in that his office uses an online appointment scheduling system and he and I trade e-mails from time to time, even though there are apparently some pretty big issues with doctors and patients communicating over e-mail.

I think it would be great, though, if I could use Google Health to schedule appointments on Google Calender with my doctor, my dentist, my other doctor, pay my co-pays with Google's payment system Checkout, access lab results in Google Docs, and send messages with Gmail - all in one place. It'd also be cool to be able to transfer prescriptions quickly and easily from one pharmacy to another in the event that I was, say, on vacation and there wasn't a CVS or a Walgreens around.

The doctor search function is nice as well and I can see it being useful if I have to find a specialized doctor in a certain geographical area. I would hope and expect that Google would eventually add a ratings system to each doctor or clinic and let people leave reviews.

All in all, I think Google Health will be pretty popular with patients but I'd expect it to be even more popular with providers as it'd provide an easy-to-use, organized system that would save money and streamline paperwork, leaving more time to interact with patients. That's what it's all about, right?

You can check Google Health out for yourself here.

Comments

A lot of people will experience what you did when you said, "I guess that if and when Google's able to hash out a deal with my doctor's office, I'd get access to a lot more information."

You are correct! But, until that happens, you and everyone else who don't have their doctor or health provider yet as an integrated service on Google Health can use MediConnect Global--an integrated service on Google Health that can retrieve your medical records from any provider in the world and glean the information from your records to put next to your prescriptions. You can access MediConnect Global in the list under "Explore online health services."

Cory123456

May 21, 2008

2:31 PM PT

So far I'm very disappointed. First it runs poorly in Opera, my current browser. Second, web based data based applications have been around for a long time. I've built a lot of them myself. There is simply no excuse to release, even in Beta, an application that cannot be properly polulated by the input form or completely printed by the print request. I added the results of several tests into the "test results" section. The layout provides for several attributes, among them the normal range. However there is no normal range input on the input form. One can add several results for the same test type taken on different days. However, you cannot print all the results out to see how a particular test changed over time. A most useful capability.

I'll suspend my attempt to use it until the next version.

HowardCohodas

May 23, 2008

8:12 PM PT