Google Health & GoogleCoop - Health
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IntroductionSee also Canada Health Infoway, Consumer health information and Google medicine Google has undertaken at least three different health-related projects: Google Co-op (Health); Google Health (electronic patient records for consumers) and, in July 2008, Knol. In 2008, Google - like Microsoft - moved into making consumer-controlled health records freely and widely-available to its users with its Google Health project. (These projects are only available in the United States.) Note that Google health is not the same as the tagging and search-related project called Google - Coop (Health) (see below). What is 'Google health'?Google health is a personal health record project that permits health consumers and patients to build their own health records in a so-called private web space. Users can include information in their records such as health conditions, drug medications, allergies and lab results. One of its many benefits is a completely merged health record and a tracking of conditions and drug allergies. At present, Google health applies to the United States only. Only Google health members can access their own private information on the service unless consent is given by the members. It must be said that Google health is not covered under the U.S. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996. Some critics charge that this is a huge privacy issue when important privacy laws do not apply to newer technologies. Google health & privacyAs mentioned, privacy issues are front and centre with Google health. However, many patients are unaware or do not seem concerned that personal health information is owned by Google once it is uploaded into the service. Some web experts and advocates, however, suggest that Google health may in fact be as private or more private than the many current "paper-based" methods of record-keeping in the health-care system where records are subject to all kinds of indiscreet access. Google health contains no advertising. In fact, similar to its academic search service Google scholar, Google will not reveal how this new tool will be monetized. In development since mid-2006, Google health had a two-month pilot in 2008 with 1,600 patients at The Cleveland Clinic. In May 2008, Google health was released to the general public in beta. Google health features
Free & open-source health recordsMicrosoft HealthVault and other similar free web services for consumers - such as the open source Dossia - Lifelong Personally-Controlled Health Record - seek to help patients track personal health information as they move through the health system. The goal with health record projects is to make personal health information accessible and transportable - which is of benefit to both consumers and physicians. In addition to Dossia, the open source Tolven Healthcare integrates the three aspects of e-health: personal health information, information held by physicians and by health organizations using informatics platforms. Canadian contextMost physicians in Canada and the United States continue to use paper-based methods for medical record-keeping. However, increasingly, physicians are spending money to digitize their health records and move to the electronic patient record. In Canadian hospitals, with more patient systems becoming electronic through informatics initiatives at Canada Health Infoway, new mechanisms are available to health professionals to write notes in patient charts, prescriptions, order lab and diagnostic tests, and review test results as they become available. In short, digitizing the patient path through the health system. Google Coop (Health)In August 2006, in conjunction with the Medical Library Association, and Stanford University, health librarians in North America were enlisted to volunteer for the tagging of consumer websites in Google Co-Op health. The project has come under harsh criticism in some quarters, especially by bloggers. First, Google Co-Op (Health) is a tagging project and unrelated to the electronic health record project described above. Curiously, American health librarians volunteered to help with the Google Co-op (Health) project. The idea was that health librarians should be the first to volunteer to tag the Web, and to bring better organization and findability to consumer health websites. Immediate MLA past-president, MJ Tooey, put it succinctly: "MLA’s participation in this PILOT project affords the association an opportunity to learn and experiment with organizational models applied to new types of information environments." It's not surprising that health librarians want to contribute their classfication and tagging expertise to Google Co-Op (Health). However, Google is the world's richest, most-used search engine. The jury is still out whether the project makes sense, and whether the massive amount of tagging that is required can realistically be accomplished with no remuneration for participating librarians. References
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