Google's online personal health record (PHR) service failed because of its relative obscurity and lack of capabilities, according to health care industry experts.Google said late last week it would shutter its Google Health PHR on Jan. 1, 2012 after the personal health record (PHR) service failed to gain widespread adoption.
While it offered consumers a way to store health information in a centralized online location, Google Health PHR was mainly an aggregation service with little to offer mainstream consumers other than an online scrapbook of medical information. Google itself admitted that adoption was mainly among tech-savvy patients and fitness enthusiasts.
"We haven't found a way to translate that limited usage into widespread adoption in the daily health routines of millions of people," Google said in its blog posting about the service.
The service was started with high-expectations, as Google aimed to try and create a service to allow people to easily access their personal health records.
The idea appeared well-planned on paper, but failed to catch on in with the public.
Truth be told, very few people actually took advantage of Google Health once it went live.
The internet search giant has confirmed that Google Health is going to stay live until January 1, 2012.
On top of that, they will make the electronic medical records available for an extra year until 2013.
After that, Google Health will be no longer, and the hope for Microsoft is that they can now capitalize in making HealthVault appeal to the masses.
Electronic medical records have yet to really catch-on, but in the long-run, the hope is that will change.
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