Juzer Burhani

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See a complete list of caffeine in drinks or caffeine in food.

Somewhat lost in the buzz of the announcement of Google Health, is the fact that Google’s also just launched the Health Data API. As they describe, the new GData API provides a variety of health-related functionality:

The Google Health data API allows client applications to view and update Health content in the form of Google Data API feeds. Your client application can use the Health Data API to create new medical records, request a list of medical records, edit or delete existing medical records, and query for medical records that match particular criteria.

Here are some of the things you can do with the Health Data API:

• Upload patient medical records.
• Get patient medical data and provide personalized functionality based on that data.

The Google Health data API supports a subset of the CCR. CCR (”Continuity of Care Record”) is a format defined by the medical industry. The CCR is primarily designed to facilitate the transfer of a snapshot of a patient’s medical history when that individual moves from one medical provider to another. In the case of Google Health, a partner site can send a patient’s CCR to Google. Given the proper user permissions, another partner site can then download that person’s CCR.

The quick tour page for Google Health gives some insight into the basic service.

Our new Google Health API profile is one of the few APIs in the Medical category and it will be interesting to see how quickly developers begin building some of the first health-related mashups with it.

Wow ... that's a great news.. Google has Launched Google Health..

The Google Health site once you’re signed in.

Google Health was put live early on, but only mentioned officially by Marissa Mayer later on during the talks. According to Google, with their new free service you can collect and manage your medical records and health information by building an online profile, and educate yourself about health issues. Google notes the service is currently English and US only (and for users age 18+), though you can access the interface from other countries too.

Last year, Marissa already suggested Google Health will be launched in early 2008. “If you look at health care, there’s already a huge user need, people are already using Google more than any other tool on the Web to find health information ... And the health care industry generates a huge amount of information every year. It’s a natural core competency fo us, to understand how to organize all that data,” she told InformationWeek back then.

You can import medical records from other services, and explore the list of health services to link to your profile. Google writes, “When you link a website to your profile, you may authorize that website to read your Google Health profile or to automatically send and update information in your profile (such as medical records or prescription histories). You decide which permissions to grant when you sign up with each website.”

Adding a condition or symptom to your profile. An auto-completion box shows suggestions as you type, or you can pick from one of the items from the list below. Other tabs let you add medications, allergies and more. You can compare this with the screenshots of the Google Health prototype that we posted here in 2007.

Finding a doctor via search.

Entering your personal data such as your age.

Google Health provides a kind of encyclopedia on health topics, listed in alphabetic order. You can add specific pages, like the one on headache, to your profile. Illustrations can be viewed in a zoomed version in a new window. Related news and groups are shown to the right.

The Google Health terms and policies

The Google Health terms of service, which you need to agree to when you sign up, disclaim:

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Along with Google’s email service Gmail, this new health service stores some of the most private user data imaginable. The Google Health sharing authorization agreement you need to agree to goes into privacy details, stating:

Google continues to ask for your agreement for them to pass on information about you to entities and individuals you define. As examples, Google lists sensitive information related to e.g. sexually transmitted diseases, mental illness, alcohol abuse, genetic diseases and more.

Google in the Q&A later on explains that they may share aggregate, anonymous information from their Google Health records (a statistic like “10% of users with diabetes got a flu shot”). Greg Sterling from Search Engine Land also asks if Google sees a risk that a company may pressure somebody to e.g. share their Google Health information with them to be able to get a job; without specifically replying to this risk, Marissa says they have privacy policies in place that let you adjust the sharing.

The Google Health privacy policy also says, “Certain features of Google Health can be used in conjunction with other Google products, and those features may share information to provide a better user experience and to improve the quality of our services. For example, Google Health can help you save your doctors’ contact information into your Google Contact List.” As with their other services, Google links in the general privacy policy which says they may share your data to “satisfy any applicable law, regulation, legal process or enforceable governmental request.”