Fall update on Google Health

We're still hard at work improving Google Health, our online Personal Health Record (PHR). We've gotten valuable feedback from many of you who are importing data into Google Health from connected providers. We often hear that you want to import data from your health insurance plans, so we're working on just that.

Today, at the Health 2.0 conference in San Francisco, we're announcing the addition of two new health insurance companies to the Google Health platform: Harvard Pilgrim Health Care and the American Postal Workers Union Health Plan (APWU Health Plan).

The APWU Health Plan, the not-for-profit department of the American Postal Workers Union, now offers Google Health through their High Option PPO plan. Members get 18 months of data copied into their Google Health Account upon linking their member portal with Google Health and then automatic updates from that point on. Harvard Pilgrim Health Care serves more than one million members across Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire and beyond and roughly 777,000 of their members who use the HMO, POS and PPO products can securely import their Harvard Pilgrim health history into Google Health. This includes prescription data used in the last year and any records on illnesses, conditions, procedures and immunizations dating back to 2006. Once a member links his health plan portal account with Google Health, his data will be automatically updated when a new claim is generated by a physician.

With these new additions and Blue Cross Blue Shield of MA, which joined in December of 2008, we now have three health insurance plans that are connected to Google Health and actively promoting it as a PHR option to their members. We'll be studying how useful this data is to our users, as we've learned that some data is not as useful as others.

We're also working with companies that offer unique "convenience" services, such as secure email and video consultations with doctors. One example is a company called MDLiveCare, a telehealth provider now available in the Google Health online services directory. MDLiveCare is helping to empower patients by sending the complete doctor's clinical note to Google Health from any consultation a patient has with their network of oncall board certified doctors and licensed mental health therapists. Hello Health is another example of a company that facilitates connecting with a doctor online and is launching with Google Health today.

Also, in case you missed our updates, here are some improvements we worked on over the summer:

• File Upload: Still dealing with paper files at home? You can now upload files you have scanned or have on your computer, such as test results you previously received in the mail. Each file you upload can be anywhere from 4MB to 100MB. Start by completing and uploading an advance directive.
• Insurance Information: You can now store all of your health insurance information in your Google Health profile, including your plan name, plan ID, group number, subscriber and policy ID and member phone number.
• Graphing: Keep track of your test results visually to see how key numbers progress over time. If you have more than one cholesterol lab result saved in your profile, you can view these results over time in a graph and track your progress.

Keep tuning in to find out what's in store for Google Health in 2010. And keep the feedback coming. We're still learning a lot from all of you.

Posted by Roni Zeiger, M.D., Product Manager