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Microsoft Working On Health Information 'Vault' System
josmar52789 wrote with an article from the New York Times, discussing Microsoft's new push into the consumer health care market. The plan is to offer personal health care records online via a system called HealthVault. Numerous big names in the medical field have signed up for the service, including the 'American Heart Association, Johnson & Johnson LifeScan, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, the Mayo Clinic and MedStar Health'. The ultimate purpose of the service is to provide an online accessible but highly secure service to patients and medical facilities: "The personal information, Microsoft said, will be stored in a secure, encrypted database. Its privacy controls are set entirely by the individual, including what information goes in and who gets to see it. The HealthVault searches are conducted anonymously and will not be linked to any personal information in a HealthVault personal health record. Microsoft does not expect most individuals to type in much of their own health information into the Web-based record. Instead, the company hopes that individuals will give doctors, clinics and hospitals permission to directly send into their HealthVault record information like medicines prescribed or, say, test results showing blood pressure and cholesterol levels. "
Well, yes, there's a potential problem any time you put enough personal information into one place: sure, it's more convenient for the appropriate people to access, but it's also more convenient for someone to steal.
My bigger concern, however, is that this is Microsoft proposing this. It makes me want to vet the idea for possible abuses. Beyond the obvious privacy concerns, is Microsoft going to make it accessible only to Windows Vista machines, thereby forcing the entire medical system and any potential clients to upgrade, followed by years of lock-in?
Even if such a system is going to be set up, I'd rather someone with a good track record build something that makes use of open formats and protocols. I'd like to know that my family's medical records aren't going to go up in a puff of smoke because Windows Update decided my Office license wasn't "genuine", or something other bizarre thing.