Google announces support of online health market

Google has announced plans to support online personal health information in the US.

Speaking at the Web 2.0 Summit, Google's vice president of search products and user experience Marissa Mayer stated that the search engine plans to support the "storage and movement" of electronic health records in the country.

She noted that Google became interested in the idea following the problems caused by paper health records as a result of the recent Hurricane Katrina.

"In that moment, it was too late for us to mobilise. It doesn't make sense to generate this volume of information on paper. It should be something that is digital. People should have control over their own records," she stated.

Ms Mayer added that the project was a "huge endeavour", will require "a lot of breakthroughs in digitisation" and that Google will provide more information in coming months.

Microsoft is also interested in the online healthcare market, having recently purchased Medstory, whose search software is designed for health information.

Earlier this month, Microsoft went a step further, launching an online healthcare service intended to assist patients in monitoring their medical conditions and taking control of their health records.

Named HealthVault, the service will enable users to share and store health records over the internet, collect and organise data relating to a range of medical home devices and seek medical information.