Google India partners with Apollo Hospitals, launches Symptom Search feature
Google India has partnered with Apollo Hospitals to launch a new feature in its Search offering called Symptom Search. The feature will provide users with better and informative search results whenever someone searches for a medical symptom. The feature will appear at the top of the search results page in the form of health cards. It is available in both English and Hindi.
The kind of results you can expect from symptom search
For example, when someone does a Google Search for, say, cough and pain, they will be provided with a list of related medical conditions like common cold, acute bronchitis, flu, pneumonia, and chest infection. In case of stand-alone symptom searches like a headache, Google Search will provide users with their overview description and what additional symptoms may warrant a visit to the doctor.
We want users to diagnose health conditions quickly: Google
"By doing this, Google aims to help users navigate and explore health conditions related to various symptoms, and quickly get to the point where they can talk to a health professional or do more in-depth research on the web," the company said.
1% Google searches are related to medical symptoms
The feature comes as an extension of Google's health condition cards that were launched in 2016 and that provide quick, categorized information on various diseases. According to the tech giant, roughly 1% of searches on Google are related to medical symptoms. It added that the feature is intended for informational purposes only and should not be treated at par with a doctor consultation.
Apollo Hospitals providing the expert medical information to Google
"With the launch of the Symptom Search Project, we aim to provide quality healthcare information which can be accessed by a billion Indians," Enterprise Joint Managing Director Sangita Reddy at Apollo Hospitals said.
