The demise of Google Health

Google Health has notified subscribers that it will be shutting its personal health records service on 1 January 2012, less than four years after its heralded startup, although the (too few to sustain) subscribers have all of 2012 to download their data to another service or personal storage. Not much fuss is being made of this, as Google undoubtedly prefers it to be. It rated only a short article in The Wall Street Journal’s Health Blog last week with few comments. Was it a bridge too far, too soon like the Apple Newton? Was it not connected enough to EHRs or telehealth platforms/web portals? Was it too far down the list of needs for most people? Was it the idea to consumers of trusting sensitive information to Google just too much? Or is the PHR idea just unappealing except to the tech-savvy worried well? And with no competition, whither Microsoft Health Vault? Click Comments if you wish to opine! Google Health, R.I.P. (WSJ.com) Neil Versel’s tart commentary in his Meaningful Health IT News blog, ‘Doomed to fail from the start’. Chilmark Research’s post-mortem, including the chronology of Google Health’s winding path bordered by yellow flags from 2007. Hat tip to David Sanderson for alerting Ed. Donna. Also see: Is Google Health heading for oblivion? in Telecare Aware a year ago.