Google Tests Connecting Doctors With Online Patients

disturbia

http://gizmodo.com/google-tests-connecting-doctors-with-online-patients-1645412934

 

Google really thinks people are that stupid?!! Yes, they do ... and yes we are ... and for as long as our default search engine remains ... well ... wait for it .... GOOGLE! 

marvin

Internet doctors, what could possibly go wrong? There was a news article a while back about someone posing as a doctor online who convinced women to point their webcams at intimate body parts in the hope of being diagnosed for their conditions. I'm not sure how arousing it would be if they did have a serious condition though. I could see this creating a lot of dangerous phishing attempts.

Speaking of which, there's now a new image/video leak where a 3rd party company linked with Snapchat either got hacked into or archived some other way and GBs of private photos of thousands of people have been leaked:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/10/13/the-snappening-is-real-90k-private-photos-and-9k-videos-hacked-and-leaked-online.html

Apparently they are mostly not intimate photos and videos but it shows that you just don't know what someone is doing on the other end of the internet. They can be saving data you upload, recording the camera view, recording conversations. Larry Page wanted medical info and diagnoses to be put online:

https://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140322154035-19886490-larry-page-on-electronical-medical-records-ted

"When I look at electronic medical records, and say 'Wouldn't it be amazing if everyone's EMR would be available anonymously to research doctors, and when someone accesses your medical records you could see which doctor accessed it and why? You can maybe learn about what condition you have. I think if we just do that, we could save a hundred-thousand lives this year. I'm just very worried that with 'Internet privacy,' we'll do the same thing with medical records — throwing away the child with the bathwater. We're not really thinking about the tremendous good that can come out of that is people would share the information with the right people in the right ways."

It's all very well connecting people with healthcare but not to people who want to sell you insurance or medicine. Google is driven by advertising.

On the other hand, real life doctors are condescending and can be just as likely to treat you in a degrading way and sometimes they don't diagnose you properly either. Having an official channel for getting quick healthcare advise would be pretty efficient. Booking appointments with doctors for minor conditions just wastes a lot of time. I would actually use a service like this. I'd feel better if it was not linked with Google though but rather a public health body that has little reason to monetize my conditions.