With Google, now search your health woos away

First came content, then came the internet bus to distribute the content and now in 2016 comes the Health search to customise the content. Google in collaboration with Apollo Hospitals launched health information search in India, today, including Hindi as a search language.

“In India 1 in 20 Google searches are health related,” said Prem Ramaswami, Product Manager, Search, Google Inc.

This health search will give accurate, well-curated and verified information of 431 diseases, including neglected tropical diseases and mental health conditions. For India, they have also launched ‘LITE’ cards as 50% of the internet users are on 2G connection, said Prem.

The information includes symptoms, most common medical facts and illustrations. This is different than the normal Google searches as this is customised according to local terms used for different diseases like Madras Eye for conjunctivitis.

One can even save a pdf of the content and share to make it available to a larger audience.

The content is sourced and reviewed by numerous doctors. Besides Prem also works with 3 medical doctors in his product team.

“By next year they plan to target about 1.5 billion of internet users in the country,” Prem told Business Insider India.

The idea was inspired by the paper illustrations and medical charts at an ASHA run local hospital at Bhallavgarh. Hence the journey started, said Anjali Joshi, Vice President, Search, Google Inc.

But this search works when we enter a disease, not the symptoms.

“This becomes too complicated and we are not working at it right now,” said Anupam Sibal, Medical Doctor, Apollo Hospitals.

This product was launched in Brazil two weeks ago and in US last year. It is available in Android, iOS and Desktop platforms.