Google Expands Health & Disease Information Library

Google has made it easier than ever before to find out health information online with a major upgrade of its health conditions feature.

Over the next few weeks, this will now include at-a-glance information on up to 900 health conditions, including details on symptoms, treatments, and prevalence.

Users will now also be able to download and print off a PDF of the information in preparation for a doctor’s visit, which has apparently been highly requested by the medial professionals themselves.

Healthy

Google first launched its health conditions feature back in February, looking to offer more information on health issues quickly and clearly, and says this upgrade follows an outbreak of Legionnaires’ disease in New York back in August, which saw a 1,000 percent increase in searches for information on the illness.

Google says it has worked with doctors to ensure that all the information presented is safe and correct, including details on a range of neglected tropical diseases, a set of infections that affect over 1.5 billion people including 500 million children in poorer regions.

Today’s expansion is the latest in a series of moves by Google to boost its health operations, primarily through its Google Life Sciences division.

Earlier this week, the company announced it would be teaming up with Paris-based pharmaceutical company Sanofi to collaborate on miniaturised sensors that could provide physicians with better patient health data, with the aim of moving toward continuous management of the condition, rather than treatments that merely respond to high glucose levels.

Google has previously developed a glucose-monitoring contact lens for diabetics with Novartis and a wearable glucose-monitoring device with DexCom.

Other Google Life Sciences research has included a cardiac-sensing and activity-monitoring wristband and cancer-detecting nanoparticles. A separate Google company called Calico focuses on research into extending the human lifespan.

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