Google Has Another Go at Patient Health Record Software

Google is reportedly making inroads toward creating a patient health record tool.  

According to STAT's Erin Brodwin, the company is recruiting patients to weigh in on how they want to access their own medical record data – potentially to help shape user-facing software.   

"Google is running a user feedback program to test features that give users the ability to collect health information from their provider patient portals, organize, search and share it with the people they trust in a private and secure manner," said a Google spokesperson in response to a request for comment from Healthcare IT News.   

WHY IT MATTERS  

The moves follow the implementation of federal information blocking rules, which officially went into effect on April 5 and which should allow patients readier access to their medical records.   

As Brodwin notes, this could potentially open the floor to more tools enabling users to control their health data.

At this point, Google is reportedly recruiting about 300 Android users from Epic-using health systems in Atlanta, Chicago and the San Francisco Bay Area for its study. The company is using available APIs to help participants connect to information in provider portals.