Doctors can be available 24/7 with the help of Google. As cited from an article on We Are 2 Learn, the company is now beginning to expand its reach in providing readers health information. Google had recently announced its newest goal of providing health information for about 900 health conditions. Such will comprise downloadable pages which users/patients can present to the offices of their doctors. Nevertheless, this new method of self-diagnosing breeds some concerns regarding the accuracy of information provided to users.
As reported on Time, it is said that the company has closely worked with a pool of medical professionals headed by Dr. Kapil Parakh who "carefully compile, curate, and review this information. All of the gathered facts represent real-life clinical knowledge from these doctors and high-quality medical sources across the web, and the information has been checked by medical doctors at Google and the Mayo Clinic for accuracy."
Other medical professionals have expressed their views about this initiative of Google. Below is an excerpt of their commentaries as cited from an article on Time.
Dr. Ami Bhatt, director of the Massachusetts General Hospital Adult Congenital Heart Disease Program: "While its always important for patients to be informed, the most important facet of these advances in information dissemination is patient and physician engagement. A doctor needs to be willing and interested in the barrage of information that the patient may want to discuss with them. Oftentimes, the information a patient finds is not even relevant to their specific situation. This has happened to me as a doctor and as a patient. Unfortunately, information taken out of context can be frightening and confusing. In this era where time for the doctor and patient to connect in person is limited, we need physicians to have the time to communicate with their patients about what they are learning," as cited from an article on Time.
Dr. William A. Bornstein, Chief Medical Officer & Chief Quality Officer at Emory Healthcare: "As always, the devil will be in the details. Unintended consequences will be inevitable but can be minimized if Google is committed to measuring the outcomes from the use of this tool and using the outcomes data to inform iterative cycles of improvement of the tool. Conflicts of interest will also need to be assiduously avoided. If Google does this right, it should provide a nice alternative to random Web searches about health-related topics," as cited from an article on Time.
Other relevant comments of medical professionals are found in the article on Time.
