Google Taps Health Care Experts for New Advisory Council

Internet giant Google Inc. -- a key player in the distribution of health care information to the public by virtue of its free and easily accessible search engine -- has announced the formation of the Google Health Advisory Council.

A June 27 announcement from Google lists the names of 22 individuals, including AAFP EVP Douglas Henley, M.D., who have volunteered to serve one-year terms on the council. The group will meet formally each quarter and have made individual commitments to supply Google with informal feedback and advice during their tenure.

Council members include health care experts from physician-based organizations, such as the AAFP, as well as provider organizations, consumer and disease-based groups, research institutions, and health care policy foundations.

"It's an awesome collection of health professionals that are giving us advice as we try to figure out how to help people find the answers they need for their health issues," said Google Vice President Adam Bosworth. The advisory council was formed "because Google does not want to play doctor," he said.

"We want to work with people who have health expertise to figure out what we can do that will be useful to our customers … and get answers to people about their health issues," said Bosworth.

That's important to family physicians because they often are the recipients of the online health care information that patients carry with them into their doctors' offices.

"It's important that medical information be at patients' fingertips, but it's equally important that patients find accurate and evidence-based health care information online," said Henley. "Google is clearly an avenue for millions of people to search for health information, and the Academy would like to play a role. That's why I agreed to serve on the advisory council."

Henley said it's equally important to the Academy that patients take the information they gather online back to their personal medical home and discuss that information with their family physician.

The medical home concept is a point of common interest between Google and the AAFP, said Bosworth. "We see a lot of synergy between what AAFP is trying to do with the medical home concept and what we envision for patients with a secure health URL," he said.

In addition, both the AAFP and Google endorse the continuity of care record, or CCR, standard. In fact, Google tapped two Academy health information technology experts to gain a better understanding of the interoperability standard, released in January 2006 and supported by the AAFP.

During the past several months, Steven Waldren, M.D, director of the AAFP's Center for Health Information Technology, or CHiT, and David C. Kibbe, M.D., senior adviser to CHiT, have consulted with Bosworth and other key Google personnel on the intricacies of CCR operability mechanisms. Google has indicated that it plans to support other industry standards in the future, as well.

"Google could be a big player in the consumer health care information space and is looking to the Academy for guidance," said Waldren, adding that Google publicly announced its support of the CCR on May 22 at the American Medical Informatics Association spring meeting in Orlando, Fla.

Google's embrace of the CCR "has the potential of putting personal health information at consumers' fingertips," said Waldren. "Universal adoption of the CCR takes a lot of small players, but a large vendor can certainly push it," he added.

Waldren said the Academy is working on behalf of members to ensure that down the road, consumer health data from entities, such as Google, will be interoperable with CCR data from family physicians.