We were surprised to read in Google’s blog on Friday that it is “retiring” Google Health and Google PowerMeter because they “didn’t catch on in the way [it] would have hoped”. The two products were designed to be personal repositories of data to help people manage their health or their energy consumption, respectively. It’s a decision that will please Microsoft, which has its rival HealthVault platform and Hohm, the equivalent to PowerMeter.
I’m particularly surprised to see Google give up on Google Health. Admittedly adoption has been lower than anticipated – limited to tech-savvy patients and their caregivers and more recently fitness enthusiasts – and Google hasn’t managed to find a way to translate that limited usage into widespread adoption. Mircosoft has also found that adoption of HealthVault was slower than first anticipated, but it appears to be doing a better job of cultivating relationships with healthcare providers and governments in order to position HealthVault as the personal health record of choice.
Perhaps both products are simply ahead of their time. Logic suggests that an ageing and increasingly tech savvy population coupled with the growing proliferation of care providers and tight public sector budgets ought to drive demand for a personal health record such as Google Health or HealthVault. But telehealth could be the real key to more widespread use of personal health records. As it gradually becomes more mainstream, remote monitoring devices will generate health data on patients at home, data that needs to be stored securely and accessible by a range of care givers – a personal health record that can share data securely with clinicians, such HealthVault, could be the answer. Indeed, the UK’s coalition government has made no secret of its support for personal health records. Longer term, Google may come to rue its decision retire from the race quite so early.
In contrast, we note Capgemini’s CEO Paul Hermelin told the FT yesterday (see Capgemini eyes US healthcare acquisition) that he plans to acquire a ‘string of pearls’, including a US healthcare company, to propel Capgemini into the Top 10 in the US IT services market. We have our doubts about the wisdom of such a move. Capgemini is far from the only IT services firm hoping to benefit from the US’s investment in healthcare IT. Others have already tried and found it challenging – notably Misys (see Misys to become ‘half the man it used to be’) and Sage (see Sage’s US healthcare business still a concern) – and if Capgemini does find a suitable acquisition it will at best be rather late to the party.