Comments on: Google Goofs on Health Advisory Board

By: newmembersforutoo

newmembersforutoo — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:52:41 +0000

I just wanted to say Hi because this is the first time I am ever posting on a forum. I do not know if this is allowed or not to post here, but I hope I won’t be banned from me. So be happy for me that I finally achieved posting on a forum after many years of neglect!

By: rnformatics

rnformatics — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 23:42:07 +0000

It looks like the Center for Nursing Advocacy has posted a response to Google regarding the lack of nurses on the Health Advisory Council. Now we just have to wait to see what Google's response is.

By: Nurse articles about travel, nursing students and Careers - Nurse Linkup : Google Health Advisory Council Misses the Boat

Mon, 02 Jul 2007 18:52:42 +0000

[...] Google Health Advisory Council Misses the Boat Views (21) Comments (0) By, Nurse Keith Google, in its cultural ubiquitousness and apparent desire to touch on every aspect of society, has created a Google Health Advisory Council with a mission, as reported on the Google Blog, to “help us better understand the problems consumers and providers face every day and offer feedback on product ideas and development.” The announcement continues: “We have formed an advisory council, made up of healthcare experts from provider organizations, consumer and disease-based groups, physician organizations, research institutions, policy foundations, and other fields.”In its infinite wisdom, Google has overlooked many key communities within the broad field of healthcare experts, including nurses. As expected, the Advisory Council is overwhelmingly made up of doctors and executives. With 22 members in all, the Council boasts only five women, and although I cannot say for sure, I am relatively certain that people of color are grossly underrepresented as well. As for “experts” in medical care, where are the patients/consumers, the lay people who struggle with the healthcare system daily? Where are the people on Medicaid, senior citizens, the disabled, the homeless, the uninsured, the underinsured? They are often the real experts, and they are woefully missing as well.Beth Anderson, RN, editorializes about Google’s shortsightedness on NursingLink, and points out that medical librarians are another group of experts who have been neglected by Google in its population of a very limited and narrow Advisory Council. Kim at Emergiblog appears to have been one of the first medical bloggers to speak out about these gross oversights, and I am sure that many more will communicate their disappointment and disapproval to Google in the coming weeks and months. Kevin, MD has also chimed in, adding his voice to the outrage. Here are just a few reactions linked on Kevin’s blog. Adding insult to injury, someone from the diabetes community is missing from this “expert” council,which also completely lacks anyone representing the specialty area of mental health, psychology or behavioral science. On the lighter side, Dr. Wes chimes in with an Arthurian twist, while medical librarians voice their disappointment and outrage.Google may be very talented at gobbling up major slices of the world without swallowing, but in attempting to create an Advisory Council on healthcare, the good folks at Google seem to have choked on their own hubris. Perhaps the feedback will cause some buyers remorse and compel Google to rethink their strategy. Or perhaps they will steamroll ahead with their Ivory Tower council and continue to spurn those from whom we have the most to learn about healthcare, access to healthcare, and the vicissitudes therein.Are you listening, O Mighty Google?Google, in its cultural ubiquitousness and apparent desire to touch on every aspect of society, has created a Google Health Advisory Council with a mission, as reported on the Google Blog, to “help us better understand the problems consumers and providers face every day and offer feedback on product ideas and development.” The announcement continues: “We have formed an advisory council, made up of healthcare experts from provider organizations, consumer and disease-based groups, physician organizations, research institutions, policy foundations, and other fields.”In its infinite wisdom, Google has overlooked many key communities within the broad field of healthcare experts, including nurses. As expected, the Advisory Council is overwhelmingly made up of doctors and executives. With 22 members in all, the Council boasts only five women, and although I cannot say for sure, I am relatively certain that people of color are grossly underrepresented as well. As for “experts” in medical care, where are the patients/consumers, the lay people who struggle with the healthcare system daily? Where are the people on Medicaid, senior citizens, the disabled, the homeless, the uninsured, the underinsured? They are often the real experts, and they are woefully missing as well.Beth Anderson, RN, editorializes about Google’s shortsightedness on NursingLink, and points out that medical librarians are another group of experts who have been neglected by Google in its population of a very limited and narrow Advisory Council. Kim at Emergiblog appears to have been one of the first medical bloggers to speak out about these gross oversights, and I am sure that many more will communicate their disappointment and disapproval to Google in the coming weeks and months. Kevin, MD has also chimed in, adding his voice to the outrage. Here are just a few reactions linked on Kevin’s blog. Adding insult to injury, someone from the diabetes community is missing from this “expert” council,which also completely lacks anyone representing the specialty area of mental health, psychology or behavioral science. On the lighter side, Dr. Wes chimes in with an Arthurian twist, while medical librarians voice their disappointment and outrage.Google may be very talented at gobbling up major slices of the world without swallowing, but in attempting to create an Advisory Council on healthcare, the good folks at Google seem to have choked on their own hubris. Perhaps the feedback will cause some buyers remorse and compel Google to rethink their strategy. Or perhaps they will steamroll ahead with their Ivory Tower council and continue to spurn those from whom we have the most to learn about healthcare, access to healthcare, and the vicissitudes therein.Are you listening, O Mighty Google?Google, in its cultural ubiquitousness and apparent desire to touch on every aspect of society, has created a Google Health Advisory Council with a mission, as reported on the Google Blog, to “help us better understand the problems consumers and providers face every day and offer feedback on product ideas and development.” The announcement continues: “We have formed an advisory council, made up of healthcare experts from provider organizations, consumer and disease-based groups, physician organizations, research institutions, policy foundations, and other fields.”In its infinite wisdom, Google has overlooked many key communities within the broad field of healthcare experts, including nurses. As expected, the Advisory Council is overwhelmingly made up of doctors and executives. With 22 members in all, the Council boasts only five women, and although I cannot say for sure, I am relatively certain that people of color are grossly underrepresented as well. As for “experts” in medical care, where are the patients/consumers, the lay people who struggle with the healthcare system daily? Where are the people on Medicaid, senior citizens, the disabled, the homeless, the uninsured, the underinsured? They are often the real experts, and they are woefully missing as well.Beth Anderson, RN, editorializes about Google’s shortsightedness on NursingLink, and points out that medical librarians are another group of experts who have been neglected by Google in its population of a very limited and narrow Advisory Council. Kim at Emergiblog appears to have been one of the first medical bloggers to speak out about these gross oversights, and I am sure that many more will communicate their disappointment and disapproval to Google in the coming weeks and months. Kevin, MD has also chimed in, adding his voice to the outrage. Here are just a few reactions linked on Kevin’s blog. Adding insult to injury, someone from the diabetes community is missing from this “expert” council,which also completely lacks anyone representing the specialty area of mental health, psychology or behavioral science. On the lighter side, Dr. Wes chimes in with an Arthurian twist, while medical librarians voice their disappointment and outrage.Google may be very talented at gobbling up major slices of the world without swallowing, but in attempting to create an Advisory Council on healthcare, the good folks at Google seem to have choked on their own hubris. Perhaps the feedback will cause some buyers remorse and compel Google to rethink their strategy. Or perhaps they will steamroll ahead with their Ivory Tower council and continue to spurn those from whom we have the most to learn about healthcare, access to healthcare, and the vicissitudes therein.Are you listening, O Mighty Google? Published Monday, July 02, 2007 9:17 AM by admin [...]

By: Dean Giustini

Dean Giustini — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 06:57:22 +0000

Hi John,
Thank you for your moderate voice in this debate. Perhaps Google will invite some psychologists to focus groups along with the nurses, therapists and other health professionals (medical librarians) that they have forgotten in their first iteration of their advisory. – Dean

By: Linda

Linda — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 20:06:29 +0000

I have to disagree with Boyakasha. Google plays a huge role in delivering information to health consumers. The Health Advisory Council in it’s current form does not represent the face of health care. Health care is not ruled by the MD but rather is a multidisciplinary approach comprising of MDs, DOs, PAs, NPs, RNs, dietitians, physical therapists, social workers, and mental health providers. The Google Health Advisory Council is a sham!

By: John M. Grohol, Psy.D.

John M. Grohol, Psy.D. — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 12:03:34 +0000

On the contrary, Google has been working on the “health” topic for more than a year, so this is not the first step into this area. They’ve also already been talking with many healthcare experts during this time, so although they have not had an official advisory council, it’s not like they are ignorant in this market.

Also, I didn’t propose a “council of 300 Ph.D.s,” I proposed a council of 42, half of which should be people representing, well, the people who actually get the health care delivered to them. I don’t trust docs or heads of corporations or doctor’s special interest groups to understand what it is to be a patient in today’s system. That’s why there are so many patient advocacy and policy organizations.

And while I have nothing but respect and admiration for those folks who treat or have gone through the treatment of cancer (as some of my family has), the only disease represented in this group is cancer. I’m not sure why, if I couldn’t represent a full spectrum of the kinds of diseases most Americans face, I’d pick just one to focus on. While cancer is a significant, well-known disease, there are others that affect more Americans and are far more preventable.

By: Boyakasha

Boyakasha — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 03:14:04 +0000

To quote the Google blog:

“The mission of the Google Health Advisory Council is broadly to help us better understand the problems consumers and providers face every day and offer feedback on product ideas and development.”

You say that it looks like “either a joke or a naive first step”. They haven’t even attempted to make a first step. The purpose of the council is to decide whether or not a first step should be taken, and if so, what that step could be.

They don’t want a council of 300 Ph.D.s from every field of medicine because they’re not opening a hospital. They’re not even developing a specific product.

The only joke here is that I read and took the time to reply to this rubbish.

By: BamaGal

BamaGal — Sat, 30 Jun 2007 01:58:36 +0000

I feel a mental health professional should be on the board as well as more pts. But my biggest concern is something I found on another blog–Junkfood Science—is this just another form of censorship—will you still be directed to proper places—not just places they feel we should go to—Sandy was able to state is better than I so check out her post

http://junkfoodscience.blogspot.com/2007/06/information-firewall.html