Published on 12:54 PM, October 14, 2014

Google trials doctor video consultations

Google trials doctor video consultations

Google is trialling offering direct access to doctors via search. Photo taken from The Telegraph.
Google is trialling offering direct access to doctors via search. Photo taken from The Telegraph.

A new trial run by search giant Google offers users instant access to a doctor, as the company looks to extend its ‘helpouts’ professional advice service, reports a UK-based daily.

Searching for medical symptoms can lead web users to inaccurate self-diagnosis, meaning they either ignore or over-react to their conditions. In what Google describes as ‘a limited trial’, video consultations with doctors are free, The Telegraph reports.

Other similar services, however, are charged for, with weight-loss consultations often costing $30 per session. A full-scale launch of medical consultations would be likely to see substantially higher charges.

Google has not released details of the service, which would be likely to carry greater requirements for doctors to prove they are verified practitioners than existing services.

The company already warns search users to ‘consult a doctor if you have a medical concern’. The NHS is already trialling a range of so-called ‘telehealth’ services. Health secretary Jeremy Hunt has said the service needs to follow banking and shopping and embrace a “technology revolution,” which will allow far more tailored and personal patient care.

He admitted that the health service has “barely scratched” the surface of potential advances, and fallen far behind major industries but said he believed it was on the “cusp of one of the most exciting changes in delivery of health care that will ever happen in our lifetimes”.