India has become the third country in the world where a simple Google search will throw up extensive information on more than 400 illnesses or health conditions such as tuberculosis, malaria or cardiac arrest. Users will see the information and symptoms of a particular disease in the form of cards across all the platforms. This feature comes under the knowledge graph search of Google Now
By searching the name of the disease or condition--Tuberculosis or heart attack, for instance--the search engine throws up information on whether it is rare or common, types of vaccines, is it easily treatable by medical professional or not, how fast it spreads, etc. Google also shows a graph of what age groups are affected the most and how long the disease will affect people. The 'symptoms' tab in the result card shows that what people may experience in different parts of the body.
India is the third country to get health cards after the US and Brazil. This information is available in both English and Hindi languages. The information is available on Android, iOS and web in all forms like mobile, tablet and desktop. The company will added support for cards which would load with low connectivity as well. Google said that they are providing this information to users just for the information and not to provide any medical guidance or cures.
The search giant has worked with Apollo hospitals and Columbia Asia hospitals for this project to gather all the information and put it in their database.
“Around the world, health conditions are among the most important things that people ask Google about. In fact, one in 20 searches are for health-related information,” explained Prem Ramaswami, senior product manager at Google.
“We worked closely with a team of local and international doctors to curate and validate this information, including Apollo Hospitals and the Columbia Asia Hospitals here in India. During the product development, we also consulted the All India Institute of Medical Sciences and ASHA community health workers to ensure the information on the cards is useful and accessible,” he added.
Recently, Apple added CareKit to their ever fledging HealthKit. Under the CareKit they released their first app for Parkinson's patients. CareKit also has personalized cards for health tracking and symptom & measurement tracker.
Contact HuffPost India
