As more people turn to the Internet to search for health information, Google is trying to redefine what they will see when using its search engine.
In partnership with Mayo Clinic, the technology giant is looking for a way to present that information in a better format and more accurately, according to an article at MedCity News.
Doctors from the clinic will OK the information, which also will be verified by an average of 11 physicians, according to the article. The information will be displayed in a box on the right-hand side of the screen during Google searches. The same holds true for Google's app, which will display even more details related to the illness or disease.
"Access to healthcare and health information is not at great levels," Prem Ramaswami, the Google product manager involved with the project, says in the article. "We want to inform people."
Provided information could include how common the disease is, all illustration of it, who might be at risk for it and how it is treated, according to MedCity. At the start, the project will include 400 medical conditions, such as diabetes and measles, the article says.
Google continues to make is mark in healthcare, despite comments from its founders in July that the tech giant was not looking to become a healthcare company because "the healthcare industry was a 'painful business to be in' because of heavy regulations."
In another recent move in the healthcare space, Google joined PwC in its bid for the Defense Department's contract to modernize its electronic health records system, FierceHealthIT previosuly reported.
In addition, the company's Google Glass devices are being used in many hospitals and are among the healthcare technologies to watch in 2015, according to the ECRI Institute's latest Hospital C-Suite Watch List.
That's not to mention other, smaller moves we've seen, such as testing out a new Helpouts video chat that lets users searching for symptoms talk, in real-time, to doctors about their concerns and to get clarity on their searches.
To learn more:
- read the article