ZDNet Health

Denise Amrich, RN

You have a month to wrap up your health records at Google Health

By Denise Amrich, RN | November 23, 2011, 11:45pm PST

Summary: Google Health will be gone as of New Year’s Day. It’s time to wrap it up and move on.

I got a email today announcing that Google is going to officially shut down it’s Google Health service as of New Year’s Day. After that, neither you, nor any of your providers who may have been using it with you, will be able to send data to, or receive data from, your profile.

In case you’re not aware, Google Health was what’s known as a personal health information centralization service, or personal health record service. Google introduced it in 2008 and decided to shut down in 2011.

If you’ve been using the service and you have data up there that you care about, it’s time to finalize it, grab it, and move it someplace else. Your health profile is available for download in a number of formats for easy porting to a number of alternative services.

I’ll be writing more about some of your alternatives in the days to come, but in the meantime, I’d recommend you make any necessary changes to your profile, snag a download in each of the available formats, and back it up, just in case. After January 1, 2012, you won’t be able to make any further changes, although you’ll still be able to get the data in .zip format until January 2013.

It’s also a good idea to make sure you’re on the same page with any providers who may have been using the service with you to make sure they know it’s being discontinued, and so you can be sure they’ve finished adding any necessary data before you download your final copy. While you have them on the phone, it might be a good idea to ask if they want you to move to a particular alternative that they’re planning on migrating to.

I’ve covered Google Health in the past, because I was disappointed when it was cancelled. In my opinion, it was the most promising personal health record service because Google is such a popular and widely used service and, as such, I thought it would stand the greatest chance of widespread adoption.

For more information on the shutdown, you can visit the Google Health FAQ, the download instructions, or the Official Google Blog.

Were you using Google Health? Have you downloaded your data yet? Where are you planning to go from here?

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Topics

Google Inc., Google Health, Health Care, Health Record, HREF, Vertical Industries, Healthcare, Benefits And Compensation, Human Resources, Denise Amrich, RN

Denise Amrich is a Registered Nurse, the health care advisor for the U.S. Strategic Perspective Institute, and a mentor for the Virtual Campus at Florida's Brevard Community College. Nothing in this article is meant to be a substitute for medical advice, and shouldn't be considered as such. If you are in need of medical help, please see your doctor.