Google Inc. will not use advertising to support its new World Wide Web health service, CEO Eric Schmidt said Thursday in the search company’s first detailed public comments about a venture raising concerns among privacy advocates.

Schmidt said the service was merely a platform for users to store their medical knowledge. It will be an open system inviting third parties to build direct-to-consumer services like medication tables or immunization reminders. But Schmidt emphasized no notes would be shared without the consumer’s consent.

“Our model is that the owner of the input has control by who can see it,” Schmidt said at the annual conference of the Healthcare data and Management Systems Society. “And trust for Google is the most crucial currency on the World Wide Web.”

Schmidt described the service as helping doctors and the increasing numbers of patients who use the Web for their own medical research. He said surveys show more society trust what they find online than what

they take in from physicians, and the service will give society control by their own health.

For example, they will be able to store X-rays taken at any number of facilities all on one online history, accessible from any computer.

The company is examining the service with about 1,370 volunteers at the Cleveland Clinic, a not-for-profit medical center. The service is not yet available to the public, and Schmidt wouldn’t say precisely when it will be. However, he said the company was working hard to release it soon.

“The current trial is a couple of months. It seems to be doing extremely well in its first week,” he said.

The interface demonstrated at the conference has menu sections for several areas: health notices, drug interactions, health conditions, medications, allergies, immunizations, procedures and analysis results. It connects the user with online research published about any condition they might have and notifies them…

Orginal post by Top Tech News