Google Health Advisory Council - no nurses, what a surprise

Three days - three posts... but this is very important as highlighted already c/o Rod Ward, Peter Murray and Bob Pyke. Please find message copied below from Peter Murray with my added graphic [TM acknowledged!] ...

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As you may be aware, Google have set up a 'Google Health Advisory Council' - further details are at: http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/06/new-advisory-group-on-health.html

And, what a surprise, there don't seem to be any nurses on it ;-)) - as others have also pointed out, most other health professions, apart from physicians, also seem to be absent.

There has been a growing discussion on various nursing informatics email lists in recent days, where many people have expressed concern/outrage at Google's actions in not having any nurses on their new 'health advisory group'. US male medics are vastly over-represented (what a surprise!?!), and many other health professionals are also not represented; representation of patient/citizen advocacy is also poor.

Their advisory group listing has 22 names - 17 men and 5 women (23%) out of the 22, seemingly no-one from outside the USA, and 13 (59%) have MD after their name. No-one has RN after their name, and I do not recognise any nursing names there. All names appear to be from USA.

Among ideas for how to engage in activity:

1. the blog post in question (http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/06/new-advisory-group-on-health.html) has a link that says 'We love feedback' and inviting people to send email - the address is gblog AT google.com

OK, let's take them at their word. Perhaps everyone could send them an email saying (politely) what they think. It might also be useful to copy these to the leadership of their own nursing/informatics organisations and urge the leadership to also take up the cudgels.

2. if you have a blog, put up a post and make a link to the article - it will then appear in the 'links to this post' at the bottom of the article.

3. many people have raised the possibility of using their positions to exert pressure on their own organisations to take action - that would be great.

This is a grassroots campaign - the wider nursing community and many health professions feel they have been left out by blinkered thinking, and action is urged.

Please forward this to your colleagues and other lists and drip-feed the activity.

Thanks to Rod Ward's Informaticopia blog for alerting on this:
http://www.rodspace.co.uk/blog/blogger.html

Regards, Peter Murray
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So, (me again) please forward on and maybe Google will wake up and realise they are missing a whole world of health and social care ideas and disciplines, plus the worlds of expertise within the patient and carer communities...

Come on Google be the global player you are: don't limit yourselves to the chorus, listen and join in with the verses too!