Social Privacy

Google Health gives you a place to maintain your medical records that is accessible from anywhere. The idea behind it is that you can have a single place with all of your medical history, and you can share that with whoever you wish. This is great when you don’t remember that you went to the doctor because you had a cold, etc. I always forget the little things like colds and the date I went to the doctor, so this seems like a great thing. The idea of having a single place with your medical records will only improve the care that you receive because more information will be available for your doctors. Here is a screenshot of one of the pages in Google Health where you can add your conditions.

The scary part comes in when you consider what would happen if this information got out. Maybe insurance companies would turn you down because they knew about a previous condition, or someone you didn’t want knowing your medical history would know.

The world is becoming a place where all of our information, and everything we do is getting stored in “the cloud” and it only makes sense that our medical records will be too. But is Google the one that should do this? If not, who should? Would you use Google Health? I’m considering trying it out once I know more. Let us know what you think.