Google on Thursday announced on its official blog the creation of a health care advisory panel, and recent speculation indicates that the company might be developing an application for patients to store their medical information online, the Wall Street Journal Health Blog reports.
The Google blog posting said that the 21-member panel will help Google "better understand the problems consumers and providers face every day and offer feedback on product ideas and development" (Goldstein, Wall Street Journal Health Blog, 6/28).
Dean Ornish, founder and president of the Preventive Medicine Research Institute and clinical professor of medicine at the University of California-San Francisco, will chair the panel. Other members include:
- Toby Cosgrove, CEO of the Cleveland Clinic;
- Molly Coye, CEO of the Health Technology Center;
- Linda Dillman, Wal-Mart executive vice president of risk management, benefits and sustainability;
- David Kessler, dean of UCSF medical school and former FDA commissioner; and
- John Halamka, chair of the Healthcare IT Standards Panel and CIO of Harvard Medical School.
The advisory council members will be offered a $1,500 honorarium per quarterly meeting, according to Google spokesperson Steve Langdon. He added, "The chairman is paid a larger stipend for his work, and some of the advisory council members will do work for Google and be paid as consultants beyond the work of the council" (Robeznieks,
Health IT Strategist, 6/28).
Some bloggers criticized Google for omitting certain types of professionals, such as nurses and medical librarians. One physician blogger wrote, "Not a lot of youth nor medical bloggers" were selected, "which would have been better choices, considering the demographic of the Web" (
Wall Street Journal Health Blog, 6/28).