The more I read about Google’s (and others’) efforts in the area of health, the less impressed and more worried I am. While offering a personalized health record online is hardly a new idea, I suppose with Google’s name behind it, the effort might gain some traction in the range of 1% or 2% of Americans.

But honestly, most Americans don’t want to become their own personal record-keepers for every facet of their lives. I have enough going on in my life that I don’t want to have to log in daily to detail every habit, food, exercise or medication I may partake of. Some people do like to do that, but most people aren’t in that camp.

Who does care about monitoring their health? People with chronic or serious health problems, and some, but not all, families. They care, because their very lives may be at stake, or because they care about trying to ensure their children have all of their healthcare needs met.

But for most people, health is almost always something you think about when something goes horribly wrong, not something you think about on a daily basis. And so while a personal health record online is a nice thing, I’d be more than a little concerned trusting this kind of information to a huge marketing company like Google, or even the likes of WebMD. Because I have no reason to believe that they are only doing this to “help” me, they are also doing it to make a buck off of my health information.

It seems to me, the last thing we need in this country right now is yet more layers of companies trying to make money off of the sick.

Read the New York Times article for more: Google and Microsoft Look to Change Health Care

Dr. John Grohol is the CEO and founder of Psych Central. He is an author, researcher and expert in mental health online, and has been writing about online behavior, mental health and psychology issues -- as well as the intersection of technology and human behavior -- since 1992. Dr. Grohol sits on the editorial board of the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking and is a founding board member and treasurer of the Society for Participatory Medicine.

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    Last reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 15 Aug 2007
    Published on PsychCentral.com. All rights reserved.