Walk for Good

Change yourself. Change the world. Get your walk on.

Be good to yourself and add the Cleveland Clinic walking program to your iGoogle page. Use the Walk for Good gadget to track your progress and stay motivated. If you complete at least half of the 15-week program by October 25th, you can help choose a health charity to receive a donation from Google.

Read more: Go for Good 

Labels: Cleveland Clinic, health, iGoogle, Walk for Good

At a press-packed, early morning event, Google launched its long anticipated health initiative, Google Health today.

The company's closest friends were there -- including Dean Ornish, a hot-shot health guru and UCSF professor; and the room was full of reps from Google partners, including Long's Drugs, Walgreens, and the Cleveland Clinic.

Conspicuously missing from the event? Insurance providers. Not one, despite Google VP Marissa Mayer's promise that there will be "thousands" of partners to come.

"We haven't explored [insurer partnerships] to date because we understand that it's very sensitive for consumers," Mayer said.

It's a prudent decision given the amount of concern surrounding Google Health. The service, which has been under development for more than two years, is meant to serve as a central, digital depository for medical records and health information. Users can import medical records and create a profile (including allergies, immunizations, medications, etc.), which are stored in a database, and available to users' individual doctors. Eventually, people may be able to upload data from other electronic devices -- including their shoes or their pedometers -- in order to track personal health progress.

Read more: wired.com 

Labels: Google Health, health, medical, medicine

I got a tip that Google vice president Adam Bosworth, who headed up the Google Health project, had left Google. Now Google has provided me with the first confirmation this is so -- Bosworth is leaving the company. Says Google:

Adam is a great talent and was instrumental in starting Google Health. He is now on vacation and has decided to pursue other opportunities after that. Marissa Mayer is taking over the health team in the interim until a new team leader takes over. Google is moving forward with work on our health products.

Read more: searchengineland.com 

Labels: Adam Bosworth, health

Slamming Michael Moore is not company policy

An advertising sales account planner at Google has apologised for comments on a company blog regarding the new Michael Moore film Sicko.

Lauren Turner used Google's Health Advertising Blog to make a pitch to healthcare companies to buy Google adverts opposite the film to get their message across. The comments caused a storm.

Read more: vnunet.com 

Labels: blogs, health, Michael Moore, sicko

Either Lauren Turner or her employer, Google, doesn't much like Michael Moore's latest work. But just whose anti-Moore review readers found in an official Google blog last Friday wasn't quite clear.

"Moore attacks health insurers, health providers and pharmaceutical companies by connecting them to isolated and emotional stories of the system at its worst," read Turner's entry in Google's (nasdaq: GOOG - news - people ) Health Advertising blog, a new project launched last month and aimed at health care companies. "Moore’s film portrays the industry as money and marketing driven, and fails to show health care’s interest in patient well-being and care."

Turner's blog entry, titled "Does negative press make you Sicko?," went on to suggest that health care companies invest in Google ads to combat the movie's criticisms of the industry.

Full story: Forbes.com 

Labels: health, Michael Moore, sicko

The Google Health Advisory Council aims to help the search engine firm better serve users seeking health-related information.

Google has created a health care advisory group of prominent medical and health care experts -- many with an interest in speeding up the use of technology in health care delivery, including online medical searches and sharing of health information.

Read more: informationweek.com 

Labels: advisory, health, medicine, technology

Vegetarian giant to eat more data, weigh less

Google is getting its ducks in a row for its push into medical information. The advertising broker has rounded up a herd of healthcare policy-types to advise it on medical matters.

The new Health Advisory Council will be chaired by University of California, San Francisco professor Dean Ornish, who runs non-profit organisation The Preventive Medicine Research Institute, but is best known for veggie diet bestseller Eat More, Weigh Less. US health insurers love his ideas, and offer discounts to blobby clients who agree to sign up to them.

Read more: theregister.co.uk 

Labels: Doctor, health, medical, medicine, Vegetarian