American Nurses Association posts weak response to Google Health Advisory Council

[rnformatics]

Beth over at the PixelRN blog has pointed out that it took the ANA 19 days to respond to the omission of nurses from the Google Health Advisory Council.

To add insult to injury, the response from the ANA is completely inadequate.

ANA Response to Google Health Advisory Panel
07/18/07
Google has recently established a Health Advisory Council to help corporations, and staff to better understand the problems and opportunities associated with the delivery of healthcare services and health-related information. While ANA applauds their intentions and their efforts in assembling this esteemed panel, Google has failed to include a single registered nurse. Given that nurses represent the largest healthcare provider constituency most often involved in healthcare consumer education, ANA believes this oversight may ultimately hinder their efforts. ANA encourages nurses to go to http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/06/new-advisory-group-on-health.html to urge that nurses be included on the panel to help Google achieve a better understanding of the problems consumers and healthcare providers face every day.

You would think that an organization that claims to represent the interests of 2.9 million RNs would have put a little more time and thought into crafting a response to the Health Advisory Council announcement.

Fortunately, groups such as the Center for Nursing Advocacy and the Alliance for Nursing Informatics have posted meatier responses. The keys to this sort of "letter writing" campaign is being able to make a good case for your cause. I'd recommend that anyone wanting to send feedback to Google on this issue should take a look at the responses from the Center for Nursing Advocacy and Alliance for Nursing Informatics for more compelling reasons and statistics to help support their cause.

If you would like to send feedback to Google on this issue, you can send it to gblog@google.com