courtesy of ihealthbeat.org
Last week, Google announced that it will shut down its personal health record system Google Health less than four years after its launch, the New York Times reports.
In 2008, Google introduced Google Health, which the company hoped would attract millions of regular users.
Reasons for Decision
According to Aaron Brown -- Google Health's senior product manager -- the company intended to "translate our successful consumer-centered approach from other domains to health care and have a real impact on the day-to-day health experiences of millions of our users." Unlike electronic health records kept by physicians or hospitals, PHR systems allow consumers to directly input, monitor and alter their health information (Lohr, New York Times, 6/24).
At first, Google Health attracted several well-known health care provider and drug outlet partners (Conn, Modern Healthcare, 6/24).
However, PHR systems long have struggled to engage regular users because they rely heavily on individual motivation and effort, according to the Times. A recent survey by research firm IDC Health Insights found that 7% of consumers had tested online PHRs but that fewer than half continued to use them (New York Times, 6/24).
The company said Google Health did not "catch on the way we would have hoped" (Hoeksma, E-Health Insider, 6/27).
Dealing With the Data
Google plans to shut down Google Health on Jan. 1, 2012, but will keep data available for consumers until Jan. 1, 2013 (Modern Healthcare, 6/24).
Consumers will be able to download Google Health data to related services such as Microsoft HealthVault (Gohring, Computerworld, 6/24). The company also will offer the capability to transfer data using the Direct Project protocol for health information exchange (Claburn, InformationWeek, 6/24).
Any data remaining in January 2013 will be permanently deleted (E-Health Insider, 6/27).
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