The End of Google Health
It is sad to the end of Google Health. It is a visionary project in the right direction, but it has not scaled as wished. I believe there are two reasons for this:
- It has not led to beneficial actions that users can take to improve their health. I was an early adopter of Google Health, and spread the word voluntarily. I have not been able to do anything with my online health records provided by Google Health. In terms of health, I may be an exception because I see a doctor only once in a few years. I tried to imagine that what I would do with the data if I were sick frequently, but I could not come up with anything.
- Google Health gets into a very well protected territory - health care. There are quite a few interest groups that are traditionally resistant anything coming outside them. Apparently Google has failed to garner their enthusiastic support.
Fortunately, Microsoft HealthVault is still live and kicking. Let it be one of my New Year wishes that HealthVault will succeed to help consumers to improve health and contain the health care cost.