14 DAY TRIAL // Google Health is a web service launched in May by the Internet giant to help users organize and keep track of their health records, insurance forms and all sorts of health-related papers. Now Google is adding new features to the service, which should allow users to easily add more information by enabling them to upload scanned documents to the site.
“As a doctor and nurse on the Google Health team, we've both had a lot of experience working directly in the healthcare system, with all the bills, insurance forms and other paper documents that come with it. We know from firsthand experience how burdensome all of these documents can be and we would like to reduce the unnecessary use of paper in patient care,” Julie Wilner, R.N., program manager, Google Health, and Roni Zeiger, M.D., product manager, Google Health, wrote on the Official Google Blog.
Health-related services have been growing recently with Google's new service becoming a major competitor to Microsoft's HealthVault launched in October. The two sites differ in their approach but the goal is the same, namely to provide users with accessible centralized information for their personal use and to share with family or doctors. But while Microsoft has focused more on the back-end, retrieving information from already available databases and sources, Google is asking individual users to upload their data circumventing the established systems, at least for the time being. The search giant will have to work with those sources eventually if it wants to succeed but for the moment it is postponing the move.
Interestingly though, Google is now encouraging users to upload their “advance directive,” a form that shows their end-of-life wishes so that family members or their doctor can fulfill them if they can't communicate them. Google has partnered with advance directive provider Caring Connections to help users download and fill out the different forms in all 50 US states.