谷歌流感趨勢——“谷歌健康”未來一瞥

近期聽到最酷的技術(shù)莫過于“谷歌流感趨勢預(yù)報(bào)”。據(jù)說現(xiàn)今美國人懷疑自己身患流感時(shí)，第一反應(yīng)不是去藥店，而是先上網(wǎng)Google一下流感癥狀，作出判斷并獲得指導(dǎo)信息。谷歌公司籍此機(jī)會，又驚艷了一把——感興趣的同學(xué)也可瀏覽www.google.org/flutrends/了解更多信息哦！

It stands to reason[是當(dāng)然的] that people who are “starting to come down with something” often take the opportunity

to search for information on what ails[折磨] them， even before

they discuss their symptoms[病癥] with a health care

professional. Who gets more of those searches than

anyone? Google， of course.

When Google started looking more closely at anonymous[匿名的] aggregate[集合的] searches for “flu symptoms” and the like， they discovered that – after cross-referencing that data against information from the Center for Disease Control – they had the ability to predict flu outbreaks by monitoring[監(jiān)視] search patterns. And now， they’ve

published their findings as “Google Flu Trends.”

The effort， part of Google’s non-profit arm[分部]，

google.org， could prove to be the first step toward the type of

predictive medical informatics that have long been the Holy Grail of medicine. By making our flu estimates available each day， Google Flu Trends may provide an early-warning system for outbreaks of influenza[流感].

Helping people manage their wellness and health in a preventative way instead of simply treating the disease? That’s a truly innovative[創(chuàng)新的] – and much needed – way of approaching health care. Can Google leverage[起杠桿作用] its wealth of data to help spark that health care innovation?

One would hope. Our health may depend on it.

如果人們覺得自己快要生病了，甚至在他們向保健醫(yī)生描述癥狀之前，他們當(dāng)然會搜索關(guān)于所患病癥的信息。哪里的搜索結(jié)果比其他地方更多？谷歌，當(dāng)然是谷歌。

當(dāng)谷歌更為密切地關(guān)注那些匿名的主要搜索問題（比如“感冒癥狀”之類），并將這些數(shù)據(jù)與來自美國疾病控制中心的信息對照之后，他們發(fā)現(xiàn)自己有能力通過監(jiān)測搜索來預(yù)測流感的爆發(fā)?，F(xiàn)在，他們公布了名為“谷歌流感趨勢”的結(jié)果

報(bào)告。

這一成果部分得益于谷歌的非營利組織google.org，它也許能成為邁向長期以來被譽(yù)為“醫(yī)學(xué)界圣杯”的預(yù)測性醫(yī)療信息學(xué)的第一步。通過每天公布流感預(yù)測結(jié)果，“谷歌流感趨勢”可能會為流感爆發(fā)提供一套預(yù)警系統(tǒng)。

幫助人們采取預(yù)防措施來管理自身健康，而不僅僅是治??？這絕對是一種具有創(chuàng)新性的保健方法，也正是人們非常需要的東西。谷歌公司能利用其充足的數(shù)據(jù)資源的杠桿作用，點(diǎn)亮醫(yī)學(xué)保健的創(chuàng)新之光嗎？

人們翹首企盼。我們的健康可能還得靠它呢。