Google to Store Patients’ Health Records, by Matthew Holt

February 20, 2023 - By Bianca Grogan

The AP has announced that Google’s first step into the world of storing health records will be in conjunction with the Cleveland Clinic—which of course already has a boatload of patients using EMRs and PHRs on the Epic MyChart system. The idea (presumably as this is a leak from within Cleveland Clinic not an official announcement) is that those records can be stored in Google, and presumably will be transportable—somewhat similar to what Microsoft and Dossia are promising. Nothing earth-shattering yet, but an interesting beginning.

And of course we’ll hopefully get some more details next week at the HIMSS conference where Google CEO Eric Schmidt is speaking, and the Health team is having a party to which they kindly invited me (Thanks, Missy!)

Google has been much criticized for its slow pace in health. But speaking as one who now runs big components of our little business on Google via Checkout (and integrates it with rival services like WuFoo and TypePad) — I think that this (and HealthVault et al) is a small step towards a much bigger online future for health care transactions. At least, I hope so!