Some sad news: Google Health is shutting down on January 1, 2012. The service, which still received a thorough interface update last September, has failed to catch up to the high expectations that Google had for it. Google Health was under development since mid-2006 and was released to the general public in 2008. The goal was to create a service that would give people access to their personal health and wellness information. When it was released, it still lacked some essential features that were later added step by step.
Over time, Google did manage to bring in an impressive number of partners. Nevertheless, adoption mostly stayed limited to a group of tech-savvy patients and caregivers. At the same time a new look was introduced last September, several fitness and wellness features were added, however to no avail. In the end, it didn’t make the cut, and the service is retired just like any other unsuccessful Google product.
In Google’s own words:
In the end, while we weren’t able to create the impact we wanted with Google Health, we hope it has raised the visibility of the role of the empowered consumer in their own care. We continue to be strong believers in the role information plays in healthcare and in improving the way people manage their health, and we’re always working to improve our search quality for the millions of users who come to Google every day to get answers to their health and wellness queries.
After new-year, you will still have one year to download all your personal health data in a variety of different formats, or transfer them directly to competing services such as Microsoft HealthVault. After January 1, 2013 all data will be permanently erased from Google’s servers. Rest in peace Google Health…
Google Blog: An update on Google Health and Google PowerMeter…
More coverage: ReadWriteWeb: Google Health: Why It’s Ending & What It Means…
