Legal Research

Following a two-month trial at the Cleveland Clinic and over a year of development, Google Health is now available to anyone with a Google Account.  Google Health allows you to aggregate and store all of your medical records online, including information about prescription drugs, allergies, immunizations, medical procedures, and chronic health conditions.  If users enter information about a health condition, Google will automatically add links to reputable reference materials about the condition.  Google has also partnered with hospitals, pharmacies, and clinics so that users can import medical records from participating providers who treat them. The most useful feature is that users can send any portion of their Google Health records to their caregivers, which can be a huge time-saver for patients with complex health conditions who are seeing multiple providers. 

What about privacy protections?   Google Health isn't selling any advertisements, so users who create an account won't see pharmaceutical or provider ads.  The Google Health Privacy Policy promises that "Google will not sell, rent, or share your information (identified or de-identified) without your explicit consent, except in the limited situations described in the Google Privacy Policy, such as when Google believes it is required to do so by law."  As far as data storage, the Privacy Policy states:

1. Google's servers automatically record log information about your use of Google Health (such as number of sign-ins and number of times a link was clicked). This information is temporarily stored in association with your Google Account for two weeks, at which point it is aggregated with other data and is no longer associated with your account. The log information will be used to operate and improve the service and will not be correlated with your use of other Google services.
2. Google will use aggregate data to publish trend statistics and associations. For example, Google might publish trend data similar to what is published in Google Trends. None of this data can be used to personally identify an individual.

Additionally, all third parties that are able to send medical data to Google Health must adhere to the "Google Health Developer Policies, which establish strict privacy standards for how they collect, use, or share . . .  information."

There will be lots of people who will not find any solace in the Privacy Policy and will avoid Google Health or any other online repository of medical information like the plague.  But I think that Google Health, which is free and easy-to-use, will appeal to those with complex medical conditions who are struggling to stay atop a mountain of medical data from multiple providers.  Medical errors are the eighth leading cause of death in the United States, killing more people than motor vehicle accidents and breast cancer.  Patients who create an accurate online medical record that synthesizes data from multiple providers will at least have a fighting chance at minimizing the chances that they will become a medical error statistic.