San Francisco - Google is expanding its reach even further, announcing Thursday a new plan to store medical records. The pilot project will involved up to 10,000 people at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio the company said, but could be expanded to include the health programmes of millions of US patients.
Electronic health records are one of the most widely touted improvements needed by the medical system in the United States to allow patients' information to be more easily shared among doctors than the prevalent paper records. But storing such sensitive material online has long raised concerns among privacy advocates.
Google already stores a huge trove of information about its users. Each medical profile, including information about prescriptions, allergies and medical histories, will be protected by the same password that's required to use other Google services such as e-mail and personalized search tools.
Rival Microsoft last year introduced a similar service called HealthVault, while AOL co-founder Steve Case is backing Revolution Health, which also offers online tools for managing personal health histories.
"Cleveland is just the first of many healthcare providers that will securely send medical records and information at your request," said Google Engineering Manager Alan Newberger in an official Google blog. "We have been hard at work collaborating with a number of insurance plans, medical groups, pharmacies and hospitals. While this pilot is open initially to just a few thousand patients, I see it as an important first step to show how Google can help users get access to their medical records and take charge of their health information."
