Google Health Gets First Insurer On Board

Earlier today, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts became the first medical insurance provider to partner up with Google Health, the recently launched online medical records service offered free of charge to patients by internet giant, Google. Read more

Google and Cleveland Clinic Team Up

Google and the Cleveland Clinic are beginning a pilot project to link the health information for some of clinic’s patients with Google personal health records. The pilot project will last six to eight weeks, and involve less than 10,000 patients.

The Cleveland Clinic has more than 100,000 patients and many of those are retirees who spend some of the year elsewhere such as Arizona and Florida. And when they go, their medical records don’t follow says Dr. C. Martin Harris, the clinic’s chief information officer.

The Google personal health record Harris says is a solution to that problem, among others. A person can approve the transfer of information on medical conditions, allergies, medications and laboratory results from the clinic’s computers to a Google personal health record.

Google’s personal health record is still in development, and it will be introduced publicly and made widely available, after the pilot project is concluded. However, other facilities are ready to jump on board. “This is truly a patient-controlled health record, and that’s a very significant step in the drive toward a more consumer-oriented system of health care,” says Dr. John D. Halamka, chief information officer of the Harvard Medical School.