Genealogists who were storing their medical family tree on Google Health may be in for a disappointment. Google has decided to retire this service. Don’t panic, though, because you will have the opportunity to download your information before Google Health is gone forever.
One of the difficulties with compiling your medical family tree is where to put it. Ideally, you want to have it located someplace that would be easily accessible. That would make it easier for a genealogist to share their own medical history with a relative, and also to have that relative share his or her own health history with the genealogist.
A detailed and accurate medical family tree can be a useful tool to give to your doctor. This can give your doctor clues about the health conditions that you might be at risk for, based on the number of relatives that suffered from that particular condition, disease, or disorder. Most people don’t remember to bring all of this data with them when they visit their doctor, however.
There are a few online resources that a genealogist can use that will hold their family’s medical history. Google Health, which was, obviously, run by Google, was one of these services. Unfortunately, Google has decided to retire Google Health, forever.
If you are currently using this service, don’t panic. The Google Health service will be “retired” to new users starting on January 1, 2012. This means after that date, no more people will be allowed to begin using the service. The data that you entered will be accessible for you to download through January 1, 2013. This means that the work you put into gathering up your health history is not going to spontaneously disappear anytime soon. Google won’t delete data until after January 1, 2013.
It seems that when Google created the Google Health service, the hope was that it would attract millions of users, from all backgrounds. Instead, it seems that those who ended up using the service were mostly “tech-savvy patients” and the doctors of those patients. A smaller group of users consisted of people who were fitness and wellness enthusiasts. Google wanted to find a way to “translate” that “limited usage” into the lives of more people, in an everyday way. This didn’t happen. Therefore, the service will be retired.
There are other online services that you can use to compile your family medical history, (or just your personal medical history, if you prefer). You could try Microsoft Health Vault, or WebMD Health Manager, instead. There also isn’t anything wrong with keeping track of your medical history the “old-fashioned” way, either. It is entirely possible to write down your medical history on a text document in your own computer, print it out, and bring it to your doctor’s office on your next visit.
Image by Vurter on Flickr