• The New York Times, Tuesday, May 20, 2008 10:45 AM

Google has started offering Google Health, a foray into offering personal health records on the Web. In development for over a year, Google Health was recently tested during a two-month trial at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio. The trial was quickly oversubscribed, one of the Clinic's doctors said, finding that his patients were eager to use the Google health records. In fact, once Google matched its records to those of the clinic, the doctor said patients used the clinic's records more frequently. "It positioned our personal health record more into an activity that they use every day," he said.

The Google record belongs to the individual user and allows him or her to send personal information at their discretion into the clinic file or to pull clinic records into the Google personal file. The ability to send information to the clinic is particularly helpful when patients list, for example, the medications they take, so doctors will know ahead of time how to avoid potentially harmful drug interactions.

During the Cleveland test, patients didn't seem to have a problem with security; they seemed to trust Google with their sensitive personal information. As yet, Google is not selling ads on Google Health. The Web giant is one of many large companies entering the field of personal health records. Microsoft and WebMD are others.

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