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Google Health

By Helen Kula @ MaRS
October 5, 2006
 

As a librarian, I spend a considerable chunk of my workday online, searching for information. MaRS has invested in licenses for a broad range of databases, which I supplement with the electronic resources I can access via the University of Toronto, courtesy of my cross-appointment. As a result, I have access to premium, quality content that meets most of my research needs. However, it’s a rare day when I don’t still wind up surfing the ‘free’ Web, on the hunt for a nugget or two. And when I’m out on the hunt, my default search engine is Google. I give some of Google’s competitors out there a whirl from time to time, e.g. Alltheweb.com, Vivisimo, Ask.com, but I keep coming back to Google.

So, when I heard rumblings that Google was going to take on health early in the New Year, I was intrigued. How would it stand up to PubMed? Or Scirus? In May, Google Health was soft-launched as a ‘topic’ under the Google Co-op umbrella. It now has an impressive list of partners, including the National Library of Medicine (the folks behind Medline and PubMed), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and even the Medical Library Association. Basically, the model is a cooperative one (hence the Co-op tag): specialists, including the partners listed above, label web pages relevant to their area of expertise while users subscribe to these pages for more refined search capabilities. For a more detailed overview, see the Topics Developers Guide.

And the results? Well, let’s just say I won’t be dropping PubMed from my list of bookmarks. Given Google’s stellar performance in other areas of search, maybe I was just expecting too much. But for someone who needs more than consumer or patient-oriented information and who wants the ability to access published peer-reviewed research and to perform relatively sophisticated search strategies, Google Health ain’t cutting it. However, it’s still early days and given Google’s track record, maybe Google Health will be my destination of choice on the Web at some point. What do other folks think?

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  • http://www.webgoddesscathy.com cathy

    What is it that makes the other sites so much better, or that makes Google Health less helpful?

    I was able to look up clinical trials and practice guidelines, which would not be very consumer-oriented.

    I assume you’re looking for other types of info that aren’t found here – or is it just that it’s not organized well?

  • http://blog.marsdd.com Helen @ MaRS

    Rereading my post, I realize I have’t communicated all that clearly my disappointment with Google Health. Here’s a second attempt.

    When Google (the ‘garden variety’) first appeared on the scene, my Web search capacity was transformed. Google offered a clean interface, some great bells and whistles, and a search algorithm that ensured I got relevant content. As Google matured and developed offshoots like Google Maps, Google News, etc, further enhanced my ability to meet my clients’ information needs.

    With Google Health, I’m just not seeing the same ‘transformative’ difference. Yes, Google Health offers users access to quality, credible sources of health information. Yes, it offers ways to narrow your search to say, just treatment information or practice guidelines. But PubMed offers similar filters AND access to the MeSH thesaurus which allows you to use subject indexing to further control your search. PubMed also offers me a variety of output options; with Google Health, I’m still forced to cut and paste links and content.

    I have two other smaller beefs with Google Health: its partners are almost all from the US and some categories don’t seem to have been consistently applied to the content. However, it was the overall missing ‘wow’ factor that did me in.

    However, my opinions aside, there is clearly a market out there for this. Healia.com has also just come on the scene as another health-focused search engine. It will be interesting to see how both Google Health and Healia fare…

Helen Kula @ MaRS

Helen Kula @ MaRS

Helen Kula sources and delivers market data and intelligence to entrepreneurs, high-growth companies and MaRS staff and advisors. She is an active member of Toronto’s information professional and librarian communities.

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