Ask Dr. Google

Google's Health Helpouts allow people to consult qualified medical professionals via live video chat.

Autor*in Anna Rees, 02.03.14

Google’s Health Helpouts allow people to consult qualified medical professionals via live video chat.

Self-diagnosis by way of Google. Most of us are guilty of it; you feel slightly off so you plug your symptoms into a search engine and trawl through the results, cavalierly matching up your illness to any number of ailments until you’ve come up with a piecemeal kind of sickness from which you’re convinced you’re suffering. Well, now Google offers a service whereby you can almost do the same thing – except the difference is that you’ll receive proper, individualised medical advice from a qualified medical professional.

Google’s Helpouts service, launched in late 2013, allows users to connect with professionals via video chat in any number of fields from arts and crafts to computers. It’s Health Helpouts allow people to get realtime medical advice from qualified professionals who have been selected and carefully vetted by Google beforehand. Primarily driven by lengthy waiting times’ in doctors surgeries and patient’s busy schedules, Health Helpouts are designed to facilitate seeking medical care for ailments such as cold and flu symptoms, rashes or minor infections and could generally mean big things for tele- and remote health services as a whole.

To get set up, you need to have Google+ and Google Wallet accounts and can make use of all of the Helpouts categories for either an hourly rate or flat monthly fee. For the majority of Helpouts, Google generally takes 20 percent of the fee but waives it in the instance of Health Helpouts.

Currently, the service is only available to people in the USA, and fully complies with US health data protection laws so as not to compromise confidential patient information, however Google has stated that it is looking to bring the service to other countries.

For more information, head to the Helpouts homepage.

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