10 ms·

Google retires Google Health and PowerMeter projects

84 points by rryan 15y ago

rryan 15y ago
Glad to see them doing the right thing and aiding in the export and migration of their users' data to other services (direct export to a Microsoft product! Would that /ever/ happen at Microsoft?).
- jcheng 15y ago
  When Microsoft shut down Windows Live Spaces they provided direct export to WordPress and strongly encouraged their user base to take advantage--is that close enough? http://windowsteamblog.com/windows_live/b/windowslive/archive/2010/09/27/wordpress-com-and-windows-live-partnering-together-and-providing-an-upgrade-for-30-million-windows-live-spaces-customers.aspx http://windowsteamblog.com/windows_live/b/windowslive/archiv...
  - rryan 15y ago
    Well, I meant more Microsoft migrating data from one of their services to Google :) -- but yes it's cool that they offered a data migration path in that instance.
TomOfTTB 15y ago
I can't speak to PowerMeter but on Google Health they have no one to blame but themselves. I desperately wanted to employ it here (I work for an agency that takes in abused children and had envisioned putting the kids records into Google Health so they would start out being able to carry their records wherever they go). But after just an hour of research I'd already identified over 20 serious issues that could open us up to major liability claims. To give just one example. This is from Google's own Google health page... "Unlike a doctor or health plan, Google Health is not regulated by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), a federal law that establishes data confidentiality standards for patient health information. This is because Google does not store data on behalf of health care providers. Instead, our primary relationship is with the user." Well...ok...but then how are health care providers supposed to put information in for their clients? The whole point of this is for the patient to carry around accurate information. But if the Doctor has to trust the patient will put the information in themselves there's no way to guarantee all the information will be put in correctly. Meaning the records could be more harm than good. Imagine a scenario where the patient forgets to put in allergy information leading a future physician to assume they have no allergies. (Yes you could provide patients with a zip file to just upload but there's still no guarantee the user won't unzip it and upload it manually or any of a million other stupid things that users sometimes do) Had Google actually engaged the industry rather than throwing something at them Google Health could have literally changed the world. Which is a far cry from the quick death it has found itself suffering.
- bhousel 15y ago
  I would actually like to talk to you more about this.. I have a (very early stage) startup on the side called Ditto Health that is using the Direct Project as a model to make it easy to transfer data between health care providers and patients. The problems with Google Health are exactly what you said. Put another way, they positioned themselves as an endpoint and made it Everyone Else's Problem to send their medical data into their repository. Health care providers aren't interested in hiring programmers to send their data into another system for no benefit to them. They have already invested plenty of time and money in EHR systems, and want to get data from all other places (some electronic, some paper) into their own system. And it should go without saying that this needs to be done in a HIPAA compliant way. Anyway, I'm always interested to talk more about this stuff, feel free to contact me at the email provided in my profile and maybe we can work with your agency.
  - klbarry 15y ago
    I always thought Google Health could make a fortune for the middle-man, if some of the OP's problems were addressed. It's perfect for it - a very complicated set-up, and no marketing, but the final benefits are enormous and easy to understand. You could start by signing up your parents, then charge their friends and etc some nominal fee for setting everything up...
- frossie 15y ago
  Had Google actually engaged the industry Engaging the industry is a customer-serving function. I suspect that Google is just not interested in that kind of activity - because if they were, surely they would be better at it. It almost seems like if a project can't survive by sheer Google brainpower alone, they have no interest in sticking with it.
  - klbarry 15y ago
    Not necessarily true - their lobbying arm was very successful getting Nevada to allow their self driving cars.
steve114 15y ago
I'm in the health tech industry and thought Google Health was a great idea, but it all boils down to the doctor's office adopting the process. Many Dr's don't grasp technology very well and are usually too busy to care. I guess they would rather have their customers sit in the waiting room filling out forms than getting them on with their day. This will eventually be popular, just a little ahead of its time.
- savrajsingh 15y ago
  Sounds like a job for DrChrono. ;)
  - logjam 15y ago
    Their own technology and response to security questions hasn't reassured many of us about their commitment to privacy, as I've stated here in response to several of their press releases.
    - rdl 15y ago
      I had dinner with some of the DrChrono guys. I think they are working on security issues (which, honestly, lag far behind adoption as a concern; they meet some minimal standard which is technically HIPAA compliant and better than most small practices now.) The biggest security concern for something like DrChrono IMO is availability; they do a better job of backups, DR, replication than a forgotten windows box running filemaker in the closet of a small medical practice, now.
- logjam 15y ago
  I looked at Google Health. It is insecure. It was not ahead of its time: it failed to satisfy basic tech needs for protected, reliable health information. The forms we have patients fill out in the waiting room are indeed a pain. However, locking them away in a file room prevents 99.9% of the harm a physician can do with medical records: breaching privacy...which you might agree is more than just a "pain" - it has the potential to ruin someone's life. I think you will find that physicians are much more tech savvy than not, and are likely dealing with issues of trust and privacy that many non-medical people don't fully appreciate. Most physicians rightly will not entrust their patient's data to insecure technology.
savrajsingh 15y ago
We've posted the Wattvision response: http://blog.wattvision.com http://blog.wattvision.com ... there's a coupon code in the post, too.
pessimist 15y ago
These projects seemed set up for failure from the start. I wonder if this is a systematic problem at big companies (or at least Google). They launch "experimental" projects, dont give them enough resources, and consequently doom them to failure. OTOH, wave was also given lots of resources (supposedly), so perhaps its just a sign of poor management.
barista 15y ago
This is what I love and hate about this company. They are not afraid to release products and then kill them shortly. They are no afraid to experiment. Keeps them looking like they are always innovating and ahead of the curve. The unfortunate part is that as a software developer it does not give me a confidence in the logevity of any google platform. I have a friend who was gearing up to use the platform and was testing out an idea that he was hoping to launch soon. I bet he won't be as confident taking dependency on Google platform the next time.
- there 15y ago
  Keeps them looking like they are always innovating and ahead of the curve. lately, most of google's products have come out behind the curve, lacking polish and functionality, and then fail to gain traction and get killed off.
  - barista 15y ago
    True. That's why I said it keeps them "looking like" they are innovating. Failed or not, each small product or feature release gives them PR points. Look at +1, buzz or any other new products. They are all the rage when they are released. Everybody hails Google as the new king of innovation and when the products are killed a few months/years dows the line, the only people complaining are developers who took dependency on that product thinking it was a good long term platform bet.
- dsl 15y ago
  > They are not afraid to release products and then kill them shortly. During my interviews at Google I asked a lot of questions, and the answers I got gave me a very scary view of how the place really works. The search and ads teams work in a magical castle high in the clouds. Almost everything else in the company is considered a fun side project. You are not supposed to think about making money, or being successful. Don't worry about getting users either, that will come as a side effect of being a Google project. 10% of the company accounts for 97% of the revenues ($30+ billion/yr). When you are in the 90% of the company that generates the 3% "other" revenue, its easy to get your project killed, or your engineering staff reassigned, etc. A $100 million dollar a year business unit does not move the needle at all, so you can never be sure of your future.
bhousel 15y ago
The rumors about Google Health's demise have been circulating for the past year or so. But who I really feel bad for in all of this are the handful of Google Health partners that actually tried building their own software and using Google Health as the data store.
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
evanw 15y ago
Bummer, I had linked a workout app called CardioTrainer for Android to Google Health to store fitness information in the cloud.
- barista 15y ago
  Looks like Microsoft offering is still alive and you could actually use that. That's what google seems to be suggesting its users. Oddly enough...
protomyth 15y ago
I guess I should be happy they try to do a lot of things, but it sure puts a break on the idea of being an early adopter of their products. It seems like you should wait a couple years before taking something from Google seriously. This sets up a really crappy catch22 dynamic.
mtraven 15y ago
Microsoft's HealthVault appears to still be in business: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/healthvault/ http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/healthvault/ and they seem to be actually doing the work of getting industry partners. I know, MS is icky, but maybe they aren't quite as afflicted with corporate ADHD as Google.
edborden 15y ago
How Google PowerMeter got it wrong and how to fill the gap http://bit.ly/kj5ghH http://bit.ly/kj5ghH This is what happens when you build a data black hole...
- ams6110 15y ago
  I just don't think most consumers see enough potential savings in electrical usage to really bother with much effort or inconvenience.
- nitrogen 15y ago
  It's considered better etiquette on HN to post the full link, rather than a shortened version. If the link is too long to be displayed, HN will elide it. http://blog.pachube.com/2011/06/how-google-powermeter-got-it-wrong-and.html http://blog.pachube.com/2011/06/how-google-powermeter-got-it... Edit: I also consider it useful to claim ownership of any of your own sites you link.
dwiel 15y ago
If you had Google PowerMeter and want something similar, come check out http://PlotWatt.com http://PlotWatt.com - Not only do we show you how much energy your house is using, we also run data processing algorithms and show you how much each appliance is using.
- krzyk 15y ago
  Do you know if there is a solution that will work in Europe (230V/50Hz)? I was really looking forward to the Google PowerMeter, even email my local power provider, but with no luck. If I could install such a device in my house, without the need to talk with the utility it would be great.
georgieporgie 15y ago
I'm a massive nerd who spends ungodly amounts of time online, yet: * I've only heard of Google Health in one obscure place, and I don't even remember where. I checked it out, put some info into it, but didn't see how it was of use to me. * I've never heard of PowerMeter. Ever. * I still have no idea what Wave was about. I don't know what's going on with them, but this, combined with things like the really lousy duplicate-login migration with Google Hosted, makes me very hesitant to get on-board with anything new from the Goog. It's like a ball-dropping convention hosted by MENSA.
cypherpunks 15y ago
I kinda wish Google had better versioning in their infrastructure. While I used neither of these products, their disappearance makes me reluctant to adopt Google products for any core infrastructure. If I buy a program from Microsoft, and Microsoft discontinues it, I get to keep using it forever. If I do the same with Google, since I'm not managing my infrastructure, at some point, it just goes away. It shouldn't be that hard to fork off sets of servers to run frozen, legacy applications, or older versions of non-legacy apps.
pinkwhale 15y ago
Online PHR will work only if it starts in the doctor's office - when physician consultations and health records are tightly linked. Pure PHR tools are just not useful for people to spend their time on... Check out the start-up: http://www.pinkwhalehealthcare.com/ http://www.pinkwhalehealthcare.com/ as an attempt to bridge the doctor's office and the patient.

84 points by rryan 15y ago

rryan 15y ago

Glad to see them doing the right thing and aiding in the export and migration of their users' data to other services (direct export to a Microsoft product! Would that /ever/ happen at Microsoft?).

jcheng 15y ago
When Microsoft shut down Windows Live Spaces they provided direct export to WordPress and strongly encouraged their user base to take advantage--is that close enough? http://windowsteamblog.com/windows_live/b/windowslive/archive/2010/09/27/wordpress-com-and-windows-live-partnering-together-and-providing-an-upgrade-for-30-million-windows-live-spaces-customers.aspx http://windowsteamblog.com/windows_live/b/windowslive/archiv...
- rryan 15y ago
  Well, I meant more Microsoft migrating data from one of their services to Google :) -- but yes it's cool that they offered a data migration path in that instance.

TomOfTTB 15y ago

I can't speak to PowerMeter but on Google Health they have no one to blame but themselves. I desperately wanted to employ it here (I work for an agency that takes in abused children and had envisioned putting the kids records into Google Health so they would start out being able to carry their records wherever they go). But after just an hour of research I'd already identified over 20 serious issues that could open us up to major liability claims. To give just one example. This is from Google's own Google health page... "Unlike a doctor or health plan, Google Health is not regulated by the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), a federal law that establishes data confidentiality standards for patient health information. This is because Google does not store data on behalf of health care providers. Instead, our primary relationship is with the user." Well...ok...but then how are health care providers supposed to put information in for their clients? The whole point of this is for the patient to carry around accurate information. But if the Doctor has to trust the patient will put the information in themselves there's no way to guarantee all the information will be put in correctly. Meaning the records could be more harm than good. Imagine a scenario where the patient forgets to put in allergy information leading a future physician to assume they have no allergies. (Yes you could provide patients with a zip file to just upload but there's still no guarantee the user won't unzip it and upload it manually or any of a million other stupid things that users sometimes do) Had Google actually engaged the industry rather than throwing something at them Google Health could have literally changed the world. Which is a far cry from the quick death it has found itself suffering.

bhousel 15y ago
I would actually like to talk to you more about this.. I have a (very early stage) startup on the side called Ditto Health that is using the Direct Project as a model to make it easy to transfer data between health care providers and patients. The problems with Google Health are exactly what you said. Put another way, they positioned themselves as an endpoint and made it Everyone Else's Problem to send their medical data into their repository. Health care providers aren't interested in hiring programmers to send their data into another system for no benefit to them. They have already invested plenty of time and money in EHR systems, and want to get data from all other places (some electronic, some paper) into their own system. And it should go without saying that this needs to be done in a HIPAA compliant way. Anyway, I'm always interested to talk more about this stuff, feel free to contact me at the email provided in my profile and maybe we can work with your agency.
- klbarry 15y ago
  I always thought Google Health could make a fortune for the middle-man, if some of the OP's problems were addressed. It's perfect for it - a very complicated set-up, and no marketing, but the final benefits are enormous and easy to understand. You could start by signing up your parents, then charge their friends and etc some nominal fee for setting everything up...
frossie 15y ago
Had Google actually engaged the industry Engaging the industry is a customer-serving function. I suspect that Google is just not interested in that kind of activity - because if they were, surely they would be better at it. It almost seems like if a project can't survive by sheer Google brainpower alone, they have no interest in sticking with it.
- klbarry 15y ago
  Not necessarily true - their lobbying arm was very successful getting Nevada to allow their self driving cars.

steve114 15y ago

I'm in the health tech industry and thought Google Health was a great idea, but it all boils down to the doctor's office adopting the process. Many Dr's don't grasp technology very well and are usually too busy to care. I guess they would rather have their customers sit in the waiting room filling out forms than getting them on with their day. This will eventually be popular, just a little ahead of its time.

savrajsingh 15y ago
Sounds like a job for DrChrono. ;)
- logjam 15y ago
  Their own technology and response to security questions hasn't reassured many of us about their commitment to privacy, as I've stated here in response to several of their press releases.
  - rdl 15y ago
    I had dinner with some of the DrChrono guys. I think they are working on security issues (which, honestly, lag far behind adoption as a concern; they meet some minimal standard which is technically HIPAA compliant and better than most small practices now.) The biggest security concern for something like DrChrono IMO is availability; they do a better job of backups, DR, replication than a forgotten windows box running filemaker in the closet of a small medical practice, now.
logjam 15y ago
I looked at Google Health. It is insecure. It was not ahead of its time: it failed to satisfy basic tech needs for protected, reliable health information. The forms we have patients fill out in the waiting room are indeed a pain. However, locking them away in a file room prevents 99.9% of the harm a physician can do with medical records: breaching privacy...which you might agree is more than just a "pain" - it has the potential to ruin someone's life. I think you will find that physicians are much more tech savvy than not, and are likely dealing with issues of trust and privacy that many non-medical people don't fully appreciate. Most physicians rightly will not entrust their patient's data to insecure technology.

savrajsingh 15y ago

We've posted the Wattvision response: http://blog.wattvision.com http://blog.wattvision.com ... there's a coupon code in the post, too.

pessimist 15y ago

These projects seemed set up for failure from the start. I wonder if this is a systematic problem at big companies (or at least Google). They launch "experimental" projects, dont give them enough resources, and consequently doom them to failure. OTOH, wave was also given lots of resources (supposedly), so perhaps its just a sign of poor management.

barista 15y ago

This is what I love and hate about this company. They are not afraid to release products and then kill them shortly. They are no afraid to experiment. Keeps them looking like they are always innovating and ahead of the curve. The unfortunate part is that as a software developer it does not give me a confidence in the logevity of any google platform. I have a friend who was gearing up to use the platform and was testing out an idea that he was hoping to launch soon. I bet he won't be as confident taking dependency on Google platform the next time.

there 15y ago
Keeps them looking like they are always innovating and ahead of the curve. lately, most of google's products have come out behind the curve, lacking polish and functionality, and then fail to gain traction and get killed off.
- barista 15y ago
  True. That's why I said it keeps them "looking like" they are innovating. Failed or not, each small product or feature release gives them PR points. Look at +1, buzz or any other new products. They are all the rage when they are released. Everybody hails Google as the new king of innovation and when the products are killed a few months/years dows the line, the only people complaining are developers who took dependency on that product thinking it was a good long term platform bet.
dsl 15y ago
> They are not afraid to release products and then kill them shortly. During my interviews at Google I asked a lot of questions, and the answers I got gave me a very scary view of how the place really works. The search and ads teams work in a magical castle high in the clouds. Almost everything else in the company is considered a fun side project. You are not supposed to think about making money, or being successful. Don't worry about getting users either, that will come as a side effect of being a Google project. 10% of the company accounts for 97% of the revenues ($30+ billion/yr). When you are in the 90% of the company that generates the 3% "other" revenue, its easy to get your project killed, or your engineering staff reassigned, etc. A $100 million dollar a year business unit does not move the needle at all, so you can never be sure of your future.

bhousel 15y ago

The rumors about Google Health's demise have been circulating for the past year or so. But who I really feel bad for in all of this are the handful of Google Health partners that actually tried building their own software and using Google Health as the data store.

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

evanw 15y ago

Bummer, I had linked a workout app called CardioTrainer for Android to Google Health to store fitness information in the cloud.

barista 15y ago
Looks like Microsoft offering is still alive and you could actually use that. That's what google seems to be suggesting its users. Oddly enough...

protomyth 15y ago

I guess I should be happy they try to do a lot of things, but it sure puts a break on the idea of being an early adopter of their products. It seems like you should wait a couple years before taking something from Google seriously. This sets up a really crappy catch22 dynamic.

mtraven 15y ago

Microsoft's HealthVault appears to still be in business: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/healthvault/ http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/healthvault/ and they seem to be actually doing the work of getting industry partners. I know, MS is icky, but maybe they aren't quite as afflicted with corporate ADHD as Google.

edborden 15y ago

How Google PowerMeter got it wrong and how to fill the gap http://bit.ly/kj5ghH http://bit.ly/kj5ghH This is what happens when you build a data black hole...

ams6110 15y ago
I just don't think most consumers see enough potential savings in electrical usage to really bother with much effort or inconvenience.
nitrogen 15y ago
It's considered better etiquette on HN to post the full link, rather than a shortened version. If the link is too long to be displayed, HN will elide it. http://blog.pachube.com/2011/06/how-google-powermeter-got-it-wrong-and.html http://blog.pachube.com/2011/06/how-google-powermeter-got-it... Edit: I also consider it useful to claim ownership of any of your own sites you link.

dwiel 15y ago

If you had Google PowerMeter and want something similar, come check out http://PlotWatt.com http://PlotWatt.com - Not only do we show you how much energy your house is using, we also run data processing algorithms and show you how much each appliance is using.

krzyk 15y ago
Do you know if there is a solution that will work in Europe (230V/50Hz)? I was really looking forward to the Google PowerMeter, even email my local power provider, but with no luck. If I could install such a device in my house, without the need to talk with the utility it would be great.

georgieporgie 15y ago

I'm a massive nerd who spends ungodly amounts of time online, yet: * I've only heard of Google Health in one obscure place, and I don't even remember where. I checked it out, put some info into it, but didn't see how it was of use to me. * I've never heard of PowerMeter. Ever. * I still have no idea what Wave was about. I don't know what's going on with them, but this, combined with things like the really lousy duplicate-login migration with Google Hosted, makes me very hesitant to get on-board with anything new from the Goog. It's like a ball-dropping convention hosted by MENSA.

cypherpunks 15y ago

I kinda wish Google had better versioning in their infrastructure. While I used neither of these products, their disappearance makes me reluctant to adopt Google products for any core infrastructure. If I buy a program from Microsoft, and Microsoft discontinues it, I get to keep using it forever. If I do the same with Google, since I'm not managing my infrastructure, at some point, it just goes away. It shouldn't be that hard to fork off sets of servers to run frozen, legacy applications, or older versions of non-legacy apps.

pinkwhale 15y ago

Online PHR will work only if it starts in the doctor's office - when physician consultations and health records are tightly linked. Pure PHR tools are just not useful for people to spend their time on... Check out the start-up: http://www.pinkwhalehealthcare.com/ http://www.pinkwhalehealthcare.com/ as an attempt to bridge the doctor's office and the patient.