14 DAY TRIAL // In the past, we have seen Google open its resources to developers for a number of its products. It appears that another, recently released, product has been given the green light in offering API support to developers. Google Health, which was officially released during a press event held at the company's Mountain View headquarters, is now available to developers and health providers through an API.
Google Health is a Google product whose release has been announced since mid-2007 and that has been designed to offer support to users looking to get a better insight into their health status. It provides a large database with health topics, which has been designed to look like an online health-related encyclopedia. The product allows its users to create a personal profile with items of information related to their health status. It also provides a "Find a doctor" function, which helps users search for an available physician anywhere in the US.
Google's decision to release an API to health providers and developers is part of its efforts in improving the recently released product. Anyone using the API can create health related applications, which they can use to interact with Google's data. According to the Google Code web page, this API sports a subset of the Continuity of Care (CCR) standard. This CCR reference documents only those aspects of the CCR standard that Google supports, as stated on the Google Code page.
For anyone who wants to get involved in Google's latest product, the Mountain View company provides a set of necessary steps in order to get things going. The four steps that need to be followed are mainly meant for those who aren't familiar with Google's Health Data API.
The release of this API will allow developers to access and read users' medical records, that is, if they have previously agreed to this.