Google has officially launched a public beta of its new health and medical information service. Google has been privately testing Google Health in partnership with the Cleveland Clinic since February. But now anybody can sign up for the free service.

So what exactly is Google Health? It's a one stop for managing your personal medical records, sharing that information with doctors who use the service, and searching for health related information. You can use the service to get your prescriptions filled, check up on test results, or create alerts that will remind you to take your pills or get vaccinated on a regular basis.

Google says it will not advertise on the site, and it will not share your private data with anyone without your authorization. But the service could collect and use anonymous aggregated data.

[via PC Magazine]

While you can't sign up for Google Health yet unless you're one of a few thousands patients at the Cleveland Clinic, Google is beginning to discuss their new health-focused service. In a blog post today, Google shows off a new screenshot which gives us a good idea of the type of information Google Healthusers will be able to store and sort online.

Users will be able to keep track of their conditions, allergies, prescribed medications, and previous medical procedures. But you'll also be able to find doctors, search for health information and save pages to your profile. Most importantly, you'll have access to your medical records wherever you are, without having to wait for a doctor to transfer files to your new doctor every time you move.

Google and the Cleveland Clinic hospital in Cleveland, Ohio will begin storing medical records for thousands of patients online today. Patient records at the Cleveland Clinic are already stored electronically, but by participating in a pilot project for Google Health, patients will be able to access their private records from any computer.

Patient data including medical histories, allergies, prescriptions, and diagnoses will be stored online, which leads to at least two questions:

1. Will people feel that their data is safe simply because they've come up with an unhackable password like "1234?"
2. Do you really want Google to know your allergies, and do you trust Google not to try to sell you antihistamines with this information?

Of course, when Google rolled out Gmail, there were a lot of people complaining that the service represented a massive invasion of privacy since machines would be reading each email in order to place relevant text-based ads. And now most people don't think twice about that. So we're going to go out on a limb and predict that if Google can demonstrate that its online health records system is actually useful, people might be willing to overlook their privacy concerns.

As for the password protection, there's no way to guarantee that someone won't hack their way into your data. But there are some basic tips you should follow to come up with a secure password. And you should really use a different password for each online account you have so that someone who finds their way into your Flickr account can't access your medical records.

Google will launch its online consumer health service early next year. We've known that both Google and Microsoft were working on health related services for a while now. But Microsoft beat Google to the punch, launching its HealthVault portal earlier this month.

So what can we expect from Google Health? Google search chief Marissa Mayer says odds are if you're searching for health information online you're already using Google. The company hopes to leverage its search and data organization technology to help patients maintain their personal health information.

Google Health lets patients store personal medical records, search for health information, manage diet and other health information, and even find local doctors. The service will also have tools that allow doctors to better manage their information, and we assume, share that info with their patients.

But this raises an interesting question. Are doctors going to want to sign up for Microsoft, Google, ZocDoc, and other online services just to communicate with their patients? It seems more likely that an individual doctor or medical practice will pick one service and then stick with it.

For example, if you take your kid to Fluffy Bunny pediatrics, you'll find that the doctors are willing to share all of your child's medical records with you over Microsoft HealthVault. If you sign up for Google Health, you'll have to get old-fashioned paper records. Because otherwise, Fluffy Bunny doctors would have to spend time submitting all of their documents to 2 or more different sites, which would increase their workload, not decrease it. This, of course would force health consumers to sign up for multiple services if they want to make sure they have access to the latest information from all of their doctors, meaning that you're the one with a disorganized mess, not your doctor.

So while we like the idea of having a single online location to conduct all of your health-related searches, store all of your medical records, and keep your doctor and family up to date, we're just not sure there's room for multiple competing services in this market.