Google Health PHR is being retired after all

An official Google Blog post on 24 June announced that  Google Health will be retired in January 2012 as it has not resulted in the broad impact anticipated at its launch three years ago.  Patients will be able to download their data through January 1, 2013. Google Health’s no-cost, secure, online, open source, patient health record made available to health consumers, was expected to improve health care by enabling patients to be partners in the management of their health. Most health records worldwide are still paper-based, and those in electronic format may be scattered among hospitals, doctor offices and specialists. Technology standards and data ownership issues are yet not clearly defined, so populating personal health record with data can be an onerous task.  Adoption of personal health records involves a fairly steep learning curve and a change in cultural mindset.   Finally, the cost of housing data and creating applications to make the data useable and secure is high.  Though disappointing, it is perhaps not surprising, therefore, that Google has pulled out of the personal health record space.

In Canada, Telus Health Space has moved into personal health record provision, building on the Microsoft Health Vault platform,  partnering with hospitals, health care associations, and academic research initiatives to standardize technologies and encourage development of applications to make PHRs more useful and user-friendly.  Telus Health Space is not free, however; it  is only available to users for a fee, which might make it a more sustainable business model.