Google Health lets users share their online records | Digital Media - CNET News

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Google Health lets users share their online records

Google Health has introduced a new feature that lets users share their online health records with designated doctors, friends, and family members.

Google said the move was in response to users' concerns that care-givers and loved ones might not be up to date on all the details of a patient's health situation, especially in the event of an emergency.

Sameer Samat, director of product management at Google, explained his personal impetus behind the new feature Wednesday in a company blog post

Just a few years ago, my father suffered a minor heart attack and was sent to the ER. I arrived on the scene in a panic, and was asked what medications he was taking. To my surprise, I had no clue. If my father had a Google Health account, and had shared his profile with me, I would have been up-to-date on his current medications.

Along with the sharing feature, Google added a graphing feature that let's users enter lab results to helps users keep visualize trends in their medical test results, such as their cholesterol levels for the past year.

Recognizing the sensitive nature of sharing health records, Google said it has built in several security measures to preserve privacy. Users choose who can view their histories and the link to the patient's profile will work only in connection with those people's e-mail addresses--meaning the link won't work if it is forwarded to a third party. Users can also decide what information they want to share, and those allowed to view the profile will not have the ability to edit the information. Users will also be able to see exactly who has reviewed the profile.

However, one security measure that is a bit baffling is a feature that restricts the ...

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