Google Wants Your Medical Records...And More?

The company has launched in the US a beta test of its Google Health service for archiving medical records and finding medical services

Google on Monday launched a beta test of its Google Health service for archiving medical records and finding medical services.

The site, which is currently available for healthcare purposes in the US only, is a personal portal that can be used to upload, store and view personal information; retrieve records from partners; investigate health matters; set alerts such as a reminder to take medication; and run applications that can, for example, keep track of how many miles a person has walked.

In some areas, Google's expansion beyond search takes on incumbent powers; Google Docs, for example, competes with Microsoft Office. But Google Health competes more with a tangled mess of regulatory and privacy complexity.

"Personal health records is an area that's just beginning," said Roni Zeiger, Google Health product manager. "The fact that only few people are using those tools means we [the computing and healthcare industries] haven't got it right yet."

Google has been talking about the health initiative for a year. "We [now] actually have the product," said Marissa Mayer, vice president of search products and user experience. "You can sign up today. It is open to the public."

The service will never sell a patient's information and will only share it with the patient's permission, Zeiger said. A user can revoke rights to share at any time.

"No Google Health user will ever find their Google Health information as search results anywhere on Google. That information is yours," Zeiger said.

To join, users must agree to various terms of use, including: "When you provide your information through Google Health, you give Google a licence to use and distribute it in connection with Google Health and other Google services."