Google Health Retired, How To Export Your Data
Google Health was a centralized health information service that allowed users to manually or automatically upload health records to the service. It acted as a management central for those records.
The service provided users with a health record summary, background and related information, as well as interactions between drugs, allergies and conditions.
Google Health became publicly available in 2008, received a redesign in 2010 and was finally shutdown on the first of January 2012.
A blog post at the official Google Blog reveals the reason for the shutdown (please note that they refers to Google Health and Google PowerMeter)
While they didn't scale as we had hoped, we believe they did highlight the importance of access to information in areas where it’s traditionally been difficult.
Internet users who try to open the Google Health website right now will notice a service announcement on the login page.
The notification links to the official service discontinuation announcement, information on how to download health records that have been uploaded to Google Health, frequently asked questions and a link to the privacy policy. The latter could be interesting for Google users who have uploaded health records to the health site. Google notes there that the company won't "sell, rent, or share your information".
Google Health user data will remain online until January 2013 when it will be deleted permanently. Google Health users have one year to export their data, either for safekeeping or importing into other health services such as Microsoft's Health Vault.
A support guide explains how users can export their profile data.
On the main page of your Google Health profile, click the Download drop down next to your profile name. You can choose to download your profile records as ZIP, PDF, CCR, or CSV, or you can download your Notices as XML or HTML or you can send a copy of your profile to another personal health service via the Direct Project protocol.
Why has Google Health failed? Google mentioned that the service did not become as popular as they hoped it would. One of the main reasons, besides being US-centric, was that the service did not really offer that much besides the ability to collect health records on the website. The provided information were also publicly accessible on the Internet, and privacy must have been a concern for many users.
What's your take on this? Let me know in the comments.
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Google Health was an excellent service but offered little in the form of encryption or safety of information from hacking. Having had my account at BofA hacked and my accounts drained of money, I was not about to put personal information to enable identity theft to occur. Perhaps Google will think twice about offering a program like this without faillsafes which provide account owners with encrypted and password protected accounts. There are just too many variables for multiple access points (read U.S. and overseas hackers) to trust one source for protecting and accessing medical records.
Google Health was by far the best. Categories and filing that made sense, auto populating of medications, doses, conditions. Integrated medical encyclopedia.
Microsoft Healthvault stinks! I think I am going to just rely on my doctors again. Google please bring it back!
Is there any subscription for an year or in a month, since i am not able to subscribe any funds like money/cash since I am a retired person who has no much earnings.
but I can assure you that I am able to contribute lots of suggestions voluntarily without expecting any finance.
I wonder what Einstein at Google came up with the idea for Google Health, anyway. What flash of brilliance made them think that the masses would want to put their private, sensitive health information in a neat little bucket for Google to exploit to their heart’s contentment. It is quite apparent that Google thinks people are idiots. But, I guess we’re not quite as ignorant as they thought we were. Goodbye, and good riddance, Google Health.