On Thursday, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts said
it would become the first health insurer ever to participate in Google Health.
The company is planning to make the free electronic service available to its
three million member base sometime this fall.
Google’s project was launched in the second half of May. According to Marissa Mayer, a Google vice
president, patients can upload medical records from organizations, enter their
own data and create their own profile, search for viable information on health
conditions or ask for a second opinion on their diagnosis.
Google has also
disclosed its partners in the electronic medical record service, which include
Walgreens Pharmacy, CVS Caremark, the American Heart Association, Quest
Diagnostics, Beth
Israel Deaconess
Medical Center,
Medco, Longs Drug Stores and the Cleveland Clinic.
Google Health comes
with a number of features designed to help its users. For instance, a link can
be used in order to find doctors by location or specialization. Moreover, users
can be notified when they need to take their medications or about possible drug
interaction through another feature, called “virtual pillbox.”
From the very moment
when the project started, one of its main concerns involved privacy issues
regarding sensitive user information. A series of privacy watchdog groups
believe that Google already knows too much about the interests and habits of
its users as its computers log their request and store their e-mail discussions.
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