Google VP talks up health initiative
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Just over a month after the leader of Google&#39;s health information project&#160;left the company, the vice president who stepped in for him on an interim basis reiterated the company&#39;s commitment to this effort.Marissa Mayer, vice president of search products and user experience, took the stage at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco Wednesday to explain Google&#39;s motivations for its health initiative, going over some points her predecessor on the health team and other executives have made in the past.&quot;There has been so much speculation about what Google might do [in this area] that we wanted to clarify what are our interests and our intentions,&quot; she said in an interview with IDG News Service after her speech.Essentially, Google recognizes that a majority of people begin health-related inquiries online at its search engine, instead of at a health Web site, so the company sees demand for an improved research experience for these users, she said.At the same time, the healthcare industry generates a massive amount of data that Google is in a good position to help organize and make available to patients and their families, Mayer said.&quot;We&#39;re not trying to be all things to all people, but the majority of users looking for health information are already coming to us. And there is a really interesting computer science problem to solve here with just the sheer volume of data. That&#39;s what&#39;s made it really interesting [for us] to participate in this space,&quot; she said.By digitizing health records and giving control over them to the patients, they will be able to make better informed decisions, she said during her presentation.With health records stored in a central server, patients will be able to access them from anywhere, whether they move to a new city or are traveling while on vacation, so that, in an emergency, unfamiliar health care providers can get a comprehensive view of their health history, she said.People would also be able to quickly and easily share records with friends and family if they choose, she said.When the news of&#160;Adam Bosworth&#39;s resignation&#160;was confirmed by Google, the company made a point of saying that its health project was alive and kicking, and that Mayer would steer the effort until a permanent replacement was found.&quot;Google is moving forward with work on our health products,&quot; a Google spokesman said at the time.The project hasn&#39;t yet yielded a specific service or product, but, in August, The New York Times reported that Google has shown a Google Health prototype to health professionals.According to the Times, the Google Health prototype is designed to let individuals create a health profile for themselves that includes information about medications and conditions. Google Health also features a &quot;health guide&quot; with suggested treatments and drug interaction warnings, pages with health-related reminders and health provider directories, the Times reported then.Google also has given regular updates about the Google Health efforts. In March, Bosworth authored a blog post in which he outlined a series of issues and concerns related to finding and trusting health information on the Internet.In June, Google announced the formation of the Google Health Advisory Council. In that blog posting, a Google official explained: &quot;We want to help users make more empowered and informed healthcare decisions, and have been steadily developing our ability to make our search results more medically relevant and more helpful to users.&quot;Google plans to offer more details about its health project at a future date, Mayer said.Google isn&#39;t without competitors in this endeavor. Rival&#160;Microsoft launched earlier this month an online service&#160;for helping patients take control of their health records and monitor their medical conditions.The Web 2.0 Summit ends Friday.&#160;
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Software giant eyes search pioneer to bolster its competition with Google.
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Partners HealthCare is teaming up with one of the state's largest employers in an experiment to see whether they can improve employees' health and, ideally, reduce medical costs by monitoring workers' high blood pressure over the Internet.
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Imagine being able to check instantly  whether or not statements made by politicians were correct.  That is the sort of service Google Inc.  boss Eric  Schmidt believes the Internet will offer within five years.
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Google executives are taking a proactive stance when it comes to issues under consideration by U.S. lawmakers that could affect the Internet search engine.
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Individual ambition is the way to improving Britain, Health Secretary John Reid is to tell a conference.
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Republican Rudy Giuliani talks about surviving prostate cancer in a New Hampshire radio ad promoting the tax breaks he says he would give families to buy private health insurance.
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Blog: Is Google gearing up to offer online personal health records? One consultant and author in the electronic healthcare industry says the tea leaves point that way.
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Adam Bosworth, a vice president of engineering, headed Google's effort to organize research on medical matters.
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Google has responded to a U.S. congressman&#39;s series of questions about its privacy practices, with the company defending its use of consumer data.Representative Joe Barton, a Texas Republican, sent a letter to Google Chairman and CEO Eric Schmidt Dec. 12, after privacy groups raised questions about the implications of Google&#39;s US$3.1 billion acquisition of online ad server DoubleClick.During an earlier meeting with Schmidt, Barton had &quot;voiced concern regarding the potential consumer protection and privacy implications of the merger,&quot; Barton said in his letter. &quot;I believe Google&#39;s participation in our research into and consideration of the consumer protection implications of a merger of any online search engine and any behavioral or targeted advertising firms is vital to crafting sound national policy.&quot;In response to Barton&#39;s questions about the privacy implications of the merger, Google repeated its calls for Congress to pass a national privacy law that would create a &quot;uniform framework for privacy.&quot;&quot;Concerns about online privacy cannot be solved by one company alone,&quot; said the Google letter, by Alan Davidson, the company&#39;s head of U.S. public policy. &quot;Moreover, both technologies and best practices for protecting privacy are changing rapidly. We therefore encourage you and your staff to ask these questions of other providers of online services.&quot;Barton, ranking minority member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, had asked Google to respond to his letter before Dec. 18, about when the U.S. Federal Trade Commission was expected to complete its examination of the antitrust implications of the merger. Google&#39;s response was dated Friday, one day after the FTC announced it would not block the DoubleClick acquisition. Google hosted Barton&#39;s staff at its headquarters Wednesday and Thursday, however.The FTC approval is the last U.S. hurdle for the merger; the European Union is still reviewing it.Barton&#39;s letter asked several questions about Google&#39;s privacy practices, including how long Google retains search queries, e-mail drafted on Google&#39;s Gmail service and Web histories. Barton also asked why Google needed to retain data.The IP (Internet Protocol) addresses associated with search queries will be partially deleted after 18 months, as Google previously has announced, the letter said. In other services, such as Gmail and Google Web History, the privacy preferences are customized by individual users, the letter said.Google retains data about searches as a way to improve its search algorithms and to improve services such as the spell checking feature on Google search, the letter said. The company also uses the data to fight click fraud and other malicious efforts, the letter said.Barton also asked if Google plans to merge its consumer data with DoubleClick&#39;s after the merger. He asked what was the benefit of the merger if Google did not plan to merge data.&quot;We are new to the third-party display ad serving business, so we have not yet decided whether or how we would merge DoubleClick and Google data,&quot; Davidson&#39;s letter said.The merger would create &quot;numerous efficiencies&quot; not related to DoubleClick&#39;s data, Davidson added. &quot;Acquiring DoubleClick&#39;s expertise in display ad serving will assist Google in its efforts to design an integrated interface for advertisers to manage their texts and display advertising campaigns,&quot; the letter said. &quot;In addition, the acquisition will allow Google to provide advertisers with better metrics for the display ads the place in our advertising network.&quot;
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Google give users the opportunity to try new ways of using its search engine, according to the company's Tech Lead on the project.
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Former Vice President Al Gore has touted the promise of stem-cell research for curing debilitating and deadly diseases â-sing his pitch to stump for
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A new website is being launched in an attempt to strengthen patient choice.
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Â· Medical chief urges new donor schemeÂ· Observer launches reform campaign
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The chairman of the Senate Finance Committee said Tuesday that he is pushing for an additional $50 billion over five years for a health care program that insures millions of children.
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Google's philanthropic arm is moving beyond alternative energy to focus on health, poverty, and climate change in Southeast Asia and Africa.
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Google Inc aims to apply Web search technology to a general set of health information problems and remains committed to the market despite slow initial progress, an executive said on Wednesday.