Google Health Introduced New Feature “Share this profile" Enables You To Share Your Medical Record

In last May, Google officially announced the availability of Google Health to all. Google Health offers you a safe and secure way to collect, store, and manage your medical records and health information online.

Many time people need to share their medical records and personal health information with trusted family members, friends, and doctors in their care network. In order to make this possible, Google Health has released a new "Share this profile" feature enabling Google Health users to invite others they trust (whether it's a family member, a trusted care network provider, friends, and/or a doctor) to view their medical records and personal health information.

Log into Google Health, click on "Share this Profile," and type in the email address of the person with whom you'd like to share your profile. Google Health will send an email to them with a link to view your profile. The link will only work in connection with the email address of that person — your profile can't be accessed if the link is forwarded on.

You can stop sharing at any time, and you can always see who has access to your information. Those who are viewing your profile can only see the profile you share — not any other one in your account. There are some extra protections added to make sure your health information stays safe, private, and under your control:

• The link to view your profile expires after 30 days
• Viewers can only see — not edit — your Google Health profile
• You can review a user activity report to see who has viewed your profile

For doctors and family members who are not yet online, you can take a hard copy of your information via new printing feature. The wallet format prints a wallet-sized card that includes a user's medications, and allergies; the PDF format prints a letter-sized copy of a user's profile, including medications, allergies, conditions, and treatments.

Google also launched a new graphing feature that helps patients visualize their medical test information. This is great for, say, someone who has high cholesterol. They can use Google Health to enter their lab results on a monthly basis and see the trend over time.