This new AI tool from Google could change the way we search online

For over two decades, Google has been indexing the web. Now it’s attempting to understand nuances in human language so it can deliver better search experiences.

  Google’s New Health-Search Engine

Making the $3T health data searchable, and maybe, monetizable.

  How Google is trying to make online self-diagnosis less terrifying

With the company’s new and improved symptom search, which recently launched on mobile in the United States, Google aims to deliver more accurate and accessible medical information to users.

 Doctors Really, Really Want You to Stop Googling Your Symptoms

There’s a term for this: cyberchondria, first coined in a 2001 BBC article and later adopted by researchers studying how the internet fuels health anxieties. And there’s plenty of it going around — a 2013 Pew survey found that just over a third of U.S. adults have turned to the internet to help them figure out a health issue, while Google noted in a blog post earlier this summer than around one percent of its searches are on medical topics.

 Here's What 6 Doctors Really Think of Dr. Google

Google says it has worked with a team of doctors led by Google's Dr. Kapil Parakh, to "carefully compile, curate, and review this information. All of the gathered facts represent real-life clinical knowledge from these doctors and high-quality medical sources across the web, and the information has been checked by medical doctors at Google and the Mayo Clinic for accuracy." Here's what six real doctors think about the initiative.

 Is It OK for Doctors to "Google" Patients?

A new paper lists 10 situations when it's justified including when docs have a duty to warn of possible harm, if a patient's story seem improbable or if there are suspicions of abuse or concerns of suicide risk.

 The effect of Dr Google on doctor–patient encounters in primary care: a quantitative, observational, cross-sectional study

The emerging use of the internet for searching health information, commonly referred to as 'Dr Google', is not seen as a threat by GPs and leads to a better mutual understanding of symptoms and diagnosis.

 What Dr Google Does To Our Opinion Of Doctors

The healthcare industry has had a long and troubled history with ‘Dr Google’. On one hand, it’s great that we are empowered and enabled in finding out more information about our health and wellbeing, but on the other, the information we find can often do more harm than good, turning us into a nation of hypochondriacs. A recent paper suggests that the problems could run deeper than that.

 When Cancer Meets the Internet

Dr. Google doesn’t always know what’s best.

 Why You Should Never Google Your Symptoms

Just about anyone with Internet access and a body that occasionally goes haywire has had the experience of googling their symptoms and watching, horrified, as the results stream in. Headache = brain tumor! Sharp pain in your side = punctured lung! Sore post-workout legs = deep vein thrombosis! "Yes, you might have a rash, and, yes, you might have seen something somewhere about cancer," says functional medicine doctor Robin Berzin, M.D., founder of Parsley Health.

 Wikipedia is already the world’s ‘Dr Google’ - it’s time for doctors and researchers to make it better

Health professionals have a duty to improve the accuracy of medical entries in Wikipedia, according to a letter published today in Lancet Global Health, because it’s the first port of call for people all over the world seeking medical information.

'Dr Google' can help patient-doctor relationship, study finds

Performing online searches for health information - colloquially known as using "Dr Google" - leads to a better mutual understanding of symptoms and diagnosis between a patient and their GP, a new research paper found.

Be Careful Using The Internet to Get Medical Information: or, How Medicine is as Much Art as Science

There are a several problems with internet medical information. One is the sheer volume of it; as they say, it’s like drinking from a fire hose. Another problem is that a nontrivial portion of the information is misleading or just wrong.

Dr Google is a poor substitute for your GP

We owe it to our kids to have the most medically qualified person calling the shots and that is a GP Ditch the virtual doc and consult a human one instead.

Dr Google will see you now: Google launches self-diagnosis search

We’ve all been there. A mystery mole/rash/fungus/phlegmy cough appears. You whip out your phone ask Google what’s up. Then you start planning your own funeral.

Dr Google will see you now: my day in the life of a cyberchondriac

There's a phenomenon within Wikipedia where if you repeatedly click the first link of each article you land on, you will eventually land up on the page titled 'Philosophy'. A similar quirk occurs on many medical websites. If you keep following links, you will eventually land on a page titled 'You are about to die of a serious illness and/or obscure tropical disease (and/or cancer)'.

Dr. Google And The New Group Practice That Includes Drs. Apple and Amazon

The emergence of Google, Apple and Amazon into health might transform the industry or just provide new thinking that changes everyone's perspective. Either way, Dr. Google has two new partners in its practice of medicine, and they include Dr. Apple and Dr. Amazon.

Dr. Google Will See You Now

FEELING good today? You are not alone. We’re approaching Aug. 11, which is, excluding Christmastime, the happiest day of the year in this country. Or at least the day with the lowest rate of depression, according to our Google searches.

Getting Medical Information from the Internet

Like all doctors these days, many of my patients’ families search the internet for medical information. Often the day after I’ve had a long discussion with a family they return with fresh questions they’ve obtained overnight from Dr. Google.

Google adds fact-checked medical information to search

Basic information on symptoms, treatments, and the rarity of the conditions will now pop up in the Knowledge Graph.

Google Will Make Health Searches Less Scary With Fact-Checked Results

Dr. Google has always been a bit of a quack, doling out ever shoddier medical advice with every passing search result. Search the symptoms of a rash and somehow, someway, you will inevitably come to believe you have cancer. Now, the search engine is trying to bring some much-needed validity to the world of health-related searches with a new database of 400 commonly searched medical conditions that have been extensively fact-checked by doctors at the Mayo Clinic.

I’m Feeling Yucky :( Searching for symptoms on Google

Picture this: you woke up today with a headache. It’s been getting worse all day, and you aren’t sure if you should be worried or not. So you open the Google app and start searching for your symptoms. After 20 minutes digging through health forums, chances are you're overwhelmed by all the complicated medical terms and breaking out in a sweat—whether that’s related to the headache or the overdose of info is unclear! So starting in the coming days, when you ask Google about symptoms like “headache on one side,” we’ll show you a list of related conditions (“headache,” “migraine,” “tension headache,” “cluster headache,” “sinusitis,” and “common cold”).

New Information Shouldn't Alter Good Health Practices

Scientists form new ideas about health all the time. But changing our habits every time a headline suggests a change in conventional medical wisdom may be a direct path to a less healthy life.

Retraction Watch: Providing Information About Bad Information

In a field supposedly peer-reviewed and self-correcting, there is a decided lack of transparency and dissemination when it comes to retractions. Enter Retraction Watch, which aims to change the paradigm.

Some Reliable Internet Sources of Medical Information

Like many physicians, many of my patients’ families use Dr. Google to help them understand their children’s illnesses. Overall I think this is a good thing. After all, I blog about these things, and from the feedback I get, many parents appreciate what I and other physician-bloggers do. I also get a lot of requests about where to turn for reliable information.

Stop Asking Dr. Google for Advice

As a physician, who manages an illness for which there is currently no cure, and for which multiple treatment regimens may well be viable choices, I have to remain open-minded about my patients' choices. Nevertheless, my goals are to use the knowledge and experience accumulated over my career to improve symptoms, preserve quality of life and help avoid complications (like hospitalization and surgery) — all while respecting my patients’ autonomy. That sometimes means having to ask my patient to stop asking Dr. Google for advice.

The Value of Struggle, and How You're Letting Technology Diminish It

You can find so much on the Internet. But if you want to increase your brainpower, you may be looking in the wrong place.

“Dr. Google,” Friend or Foe?

For me, the answer to whether Google is friend or foe is that it is both. Google (or any search engine) is a mixed bag. The range of information is astonishing. At times, it can be tremendously helpful. At other times, however, it can lead me down the wrong path—giving me inaccurate information and even scaring me unnecessarily about a health issue.