Google Blogoscoped

Forum

Google Says Its Health Platform Is Due In Early 2008  (View post)

toml [PersonRank 6]

Thursday, October 18, 2007
16 years ago6,144 views


Google plans to bring its immense data storage and organization capacities to the field of medical care and patient records, Marissa Mayer, the company's head of search, said at the Web 2.0 Summit.

By Richard Martin
InformationWeek
pazdziernik 17, 2007 09:45 PM

Telling her audience to "expect a lot of activity in the coming months," Marissa Mayer, Google (NSDQ: GOOG)'s head of search, said today that the long-expected Google Health initiative will formally appear in early 2008.

Speaking at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, Mayer outlined the ways in which the search giant plans to bring its immense data storage and organization capacities to the field of medical care and patient records. Google is already the starting point for a large majority of the health-related searches on the Web, she pointed out.

http://www.informationweek.com/news/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=202404027

[snipped, linked.]

Above 1 comments were made in the forum before this was blogged,

Mambo [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

With a product having such a pre-release production timescale, I can't imagine this being a "Labs" project.

I still can't get my head around the whole Health platform thing – it just seems a bit freaky, and too varied around the globe to become a worldwide product. We'll see, I guess.

J [PersonRank 2]

16 years ago #

I'm a heavy Google user, fan and shareholder and am biased.

That said, all this public talk about GHealth has me thinking they really don't know where to develop first in this area; have no real plan and are talking in public out loud to get feedback that might provide them some sort of compass.

It's making Mayer and Google look silly and lost.

Roger Browne [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

In the 1990s I was peripherally involved with several "Electronic Patient Record" projects.

They were all over-designed. All the data was shoehorned into fixed, predefined structures, defined by database schemas with rigid fields and formats. It's incredibly expensive to do it that way, and it doesn't work because real-life data is much "messier".

I have a hunch Google is going to apply their "search, don't index" philosophy and produce something that is ten times easier to use than "old technology" electronic health records.

But, as others have said, this market will go to whoever is first to reach a critical mass of users. Google and Microsoft are big enough that they are surely leading contenders. Google can probably come up with better search technology; Microsoft has more fingers in the relevant pies (for example the UK National Health Service is Microsoft's single largest customer).

Reto Meier [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

[put at-character here]Roger: As a UK resident, the biggest single selling point in favour of a Google health initiative could / should be that the NHS is powered by Microsoft...

Roger Browne [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

[put at-character here]Reto: I couldn't agree more, but the NHS is pretty heavily locked into Microsoft, who have even produced customized versions of Windows just for the NHS (equals more lock-in).

Piotr [PersonRank 2]

16 years ago #

Hey Phillip,

Minutes per patient is preferred versus minutes per record lookup, right? Or do you prefer having your rectal exams by your next door neighbor whose name is Frank?

Philipp Lenssen [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

Piotr, Marissa was talking about *decreasing* the minutes per patient, not increasing it. She didn't even say "decrease the records lookup time to spend more time with the patient on issues that matter", which would have made sense. And that rushing is not what I as patient prefer... In general, I avoid doctors that haste me through to decrease their "minutes per patient" time. You notice that pretty quickly, because you're not getting the information and explanation you need. But the parameters may vary from country to country, of course. Maybe in the USA there are so few doctors, that even rushing patients through is the only option unless you want to be doctored by your neighbor Frank...

Piotr [PersonRank 2]

16 years ago #

I was thinking more in terms in being denied a service for a day because the doctor was looking up the records for someone else. When you think about global minutes, every minute counts... the more time saved for the doctor means more time to talk with the patient or to see other patients.

You're right, it sucks to feel like you are being rushed through an office visit. Anything to decrease that is good (I think).

Hashim Warren [PersonRank 4]

16 years ago #

Marissa is being coy. The impetus for building this product is to use it to serve us ads from the pharma industry.

Suresh S [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

Google Health

is there any idea that google will have some some contacts with doctor. let me know the consulting hours through online. or consultation through online chat . KPO , medical transcription.

http://ssuresh83.googlepages.com/google_health.JPG

hebbet [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

the Logo in the post looks better.
http://blogoscoped.com/files/google-health.png

James Xuan [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

I prefer Suresh's, no offence Philipp!

Suresh S [PersonRank 10]

16 years ago #

Thanks James!!

Tom Anderson [PersonRank 0]

16 years ago #

Ummm...please, no needles. Hate em, though I've had plenty in my mouth now.

(dentist app. drawing closer...)

Forum home

Advertisement

 
Blog  |  Forum     more >> Archive | Feed | Google's blogs | About
Advertisement

 

This site unofficially covers Google™ and more with some rights reserved. Join our forum!