It's only been a few months since Google (NYSE: GOOG) launched its new health-information aggregation service, but it's already racked up quite a few partners in an effort to overtake Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT), WebMD (Nasdaq: WBMD), and Revolution Health, which all predated Google's efforts with similar websites to store health-care information.
Making importing your medical data easy is the key to successfully getting people to use the service. Who the heck would want to have to type in every drug they've ever taken, or decipher their doctor's chicken scratch?
Google Health's founding partners -- CVS Caremark (NYSE: CVS), Walgreen (NYSE: WAG), mail-order benefit manager MedcoHealth Solutions (NYSE: MHS), and laboratory-testing company Quest Diagnostics (NYSE: DGX) just to name a few -- were all a good start, but the search giant has apparently gone up the food chain to sign up the mother of all pharmacy clients.
Instead of signing up each individual client, Google Health is partnering with PDX, a provider of client tracking software to almost 3,000 pharmacies. Now, 55 million customers could potentially integrate their pharmaceutical records into Google Health.
Since PDX is just the software maker, Google Health will still have to sign up the pharmacies individually, but the pitch shouldn't be nearly as hard, since PDX has done all the work to create seamless integration between the pharmacies' databases and Google Health.
Until Google Health establishes a way to get most doctors' records into its system, I think it'll probably remain a niche product, but the partnership with PDX definitely shows that Google has the right prescription for success.
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