Google unveils personal medical record service

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The company's long-rumored entry into the highly sensitive field came when Chief Executive Eric Schmidt introduced Google Health at a health-care conference in Florida on Thursday.

Google said it has signed deals with hospitals and companies including medical tester Quest Diagnostics Inc, health insurer Aetna Inc, Walgreens and Walmart Stores Inc pharmacies.

The password-protected Web service stores health records on Google computers, with a medical services directory that lets users import doctors' records, drug history and test results.

Google aims to foster sharing of information between these services, but keep control in patients' hands, allowing them to schedule appointments or refill prescriptions, for example.

"We don't know how to suck it out of the brains of doctors, but we know how to suck it out of the computer systems of doctors," Schmidt said in an interview after his speech.

A week ago, Google said it was teaming up with leading academic medical researcher Cleveland Clinic to test a data exchange that puts patients in charge of records.

Schmidt said it would likely be a few months before Google Health is offered more widely.

For decades progress has been slow converting paper records often scrawled in illegible doctors' script and stored in conflicting filing systems into centrally held digital records. IBM, Oracle Corp and Siemens AG, among many others, have worked on such digitization.

Google's biggest rival, Microsoft Corp, has introduced HealthVault, which gives users control over who sees what. Among start-ups active in the field are Revolution Health, a company backed by former AOL Chairman Steve Case.

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