"Happy Holidays, here are my medical records. Keep them safe, ok?"

Can't you just see it now? That look of joy on a loved one's face when you decide to let them in on your medical history, courtesy of Google Health? As of yesterday, all that joy is just sitting out there, waiting for you to grab it. That is, of course, with the launch of a new feature on Google Health, as TechCrunch reports, that allows you to send links to loved ones which grant them access to your medical records.

This new feature is just the tip of the iceberg for Google Health, which launched on May 19, 2008, with very little publicity. Google Health is easy to use, like many other Google tools. The website says you can "[o]rganize your health information in one place," and "[g]ather your medical records from doctors, hospitals, and pharmacies." If you didn't already have enough to do online, you can now manage your health records there, too. I wonder if there's a feature coming that would allow you to upload medical info onto your Facebook page? Hmm, now there's a thought!

If Google Health and this special new feature don't get you excited, let me just say: you're not alone. I will admit here, for the record--no pun intended--that I hate the idea of Google Health. It seems simple enough on the surface, but as we continue to add information to online services without really knowing where the content ends up (or, who "owns" it, as the recent Facebook fiasco brought to our attention), it gets very complex. How do we control where our info goes? What if the information ends up in the hands of people who use it to penalize you for not maintaining a certain weight, cholesterol level, or perhaps using too many physician resources? It sounds far-fetched now, but there isn't much to prevent that from happening in the future.

I know that most people don't think about these things, and if they do, it's not that big of a deal. After all, all of our information is out there already, many say. What's more, they point out, Google Health promises they'll never sell your info. One commenter on the TechCrunch article named "courtney benson" probably summed up this view of the situation best when she said,

"Google has more information on people because all those "free services" that they provide are collecting data...They know your credit card numbers, bank accounts, who you know, what you say, where you go, where you live, what you like, what you dislike, and on and on. That's why they are laughing all the way to the bank..."

It may be true that Google has all of this information anyway, but why add medical records to the host of information they've retained about you over the years (don't lie, you know your Google Picasa photo album is rife with incriminating photos)? We're not discussing something meaningless here, like a bunch of status updates on Twitter--it's your health, a sensitive topic.

At the very least, I think it would be wise to take a proactive approach to understanding Google's policies about health records. While they say they'll never "sell" them, what if they "give" them to another tool within Google, and your information is shared that way? It's time we really think about whether the benefits of the service outweigh the drawbacks.

What do you think of Google Health and sharing medical records online? Are our records easily accessible without this service even entering into the picture? Enlighten me.