'Patient-centric' access to health records

Academic medical institution The Cleveland Clinic has announced a collaboration with Google to pilot a new health offering for up to 10,000 patients.

The invitation-only initiative will test the secure exchange of patient medical records, such as prescriptions, conditions and allergies, between The Cleveland Clinic and a secure Google patient profile.

The goal is to give patients the ability to interact with multiple physicians, healthcare service providers and pharmacies.

"Patients are managing their own healthcare information more proactively," said Martin Harris, chief information officer at The Cleveland Clinic.

"This collaboration is intended to help Google test features and services that will ultimately allow all American [patients] to direct the exchange of their medical information between various providers without compromising privacy."

The pilot will eventually extend The Cleveland Clinic's online patient services to a broader audience, while enabling the portability of data so that patients can take their records with them if even they go outside the Cleveland Clinic Health System.

"We believe that patients should be able easily to access and manage their own health information," said Marissa Mayer, vice president of search products and user experience at Google.