Google Shuts Down Medical Records And Health Data Platform

Well, well, well. This news doesn’t surprise me but I am disappointed – not that Google is shutting the venture (sound business sense) but it couldn’t gain enough traction to keep it going.

In the dim distant past, when I had a real job, I worked on a project to implement health records on things that looked like PCs. It isn’t a difficult job, as much as medics will tell you differently, it is getting people to use the thing that is difficult. We spent a few million pounds and gave up – just like Google.


This is a quote from the Google blog

There has been adoption among certain groups of users like tech-savvy patients and their caregivers, and more recently fitness and wellness enthusiasts. But we haven’t found a way to translate that limited usage into widespread adoption in the daily health routines of millions of people. That’s why we’ve made the difficult decision to discontinue the Google Health service.

You can read more about the decision on TechCrunch.

Microsoft is still having a go to establish its health records infrastructure. Good luck.

Motherknows is an interesting approach – medical records for the caring mother. Perhaps we need a carerknows.com service – maybe one already existing? Dick Stroud