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Google to Offer Online Personal Health Records
hhavensteincw writes "Less than two weeks after Microsoft announced plans to offer personal health records, Google announced today that it plans to offer online personal health records to help patients tote and store their own x-rays and other health data. Google made the announcement Wednesday at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco."
We don't have enough of your personal data. Why don't you let us have your health records too?
targeted ads for calcium supplements next to broken bone x-rays, valtrex next to any note with keyword "itchy" or "burns", viagra/levitra with "limp". the possibilities are endless!
The IRS is the one organization that you don't want to fuck with. Remember, these are the guys who took down Al Capone.
...of all the targeted ads you'll get if you have erectile dysfunction...
This idea is far from new. I interviewed with a small company back in 99 called e-medsoft.com that was trying to put medical records online. The idea has a lot of merit when you look at all the paper that moves from place to place in the health care industry. The company I interviewed with went belly up, because it was too hard to get people to adopt the technology. It needs to be nearly ubiquitous to add the most value. Plus, there are a lot of regulations and privacy laws in place which make it a little more difficult to effectively do business in this space.
There's no excuse for using Google for anything. Considering Google's #1 motive seems to be to collect as much information as possible on the public, it really makes you question their ultimate goals and wonder about how such a young company got so much funding so quickly to become the monolith they are.
"Free" is far, far too expensive of a price to pay for any of Google's "services", as neat as they may be.
http://www.scroogle.org/ (they even have a https Firefox plugin and an IE agent available) is a good alternative for searching. Don't forget to disable in your hosts file or via adblock all of Google's ads and tracking robots that track 90% of the websites you visit.
I can't believe I'm about to quote this movie, I really never thought it would happen... From Roadhouse:
Doc: Do you always carry your medical record around with you?
Dalton: Saves time.
Now, if only we could have a story that I could relate the sex scene in the back room of the bar to. "But I'm on my break!"
Why can't *I* keep my medical records on me, on my person with a password on me, on my person?
The way I figure it is an encrypted USB drive and public key that I give my current provider.
I would also like to fire them (and their ability to have access to my records) at whim.
Unlike Clooney, I want *MY* data to be MINE. Not in the hands of others.
Google with my records? I don't think so.
Epidemiological data mining. Google Earth overlays, with clusters of heart disease, diabetes, obesity, tooth decay, and E. coli infections near fast food restaurants. There might be clusters of radon-related lung cancer. There are some really nifty things you could find out by centralizing medical records. Alter or improve traffic patterns in neighborhoods where statistically more people are getting hit by cars.
I'm not advocating that we actually do all this, just pointing out some possibilities.
it's a blue bright blue Saturday hey hey
For finally finding a shark to jump.
This post patent pending.
For future records, yes. If I treat you and subsequently you fire me, you have every right that I not be able to see records of your future medical care. However, any records of your care (or records you previously have had sent to me from other providers) not only should, but must (by law) be maintained by me and thus available to me.
Of course I might be willing to agree to remove your records from my office or record storage facility if: 1) it were no longer against the law, 2) there was no issue with FDA regulated drug abuse or diversion, and 3) by doing so you relinquish all rights in the future to sue me since your medical record is my entire documentation of my version of events should we have a disagreement in the future.
Seriously -- I was reading their statements at the time, and it was clear as day. They do automated analysis for targeting ads, but don't do any cross-correlation that would be a privacy breach in the sense that any other human being finds out something they shouldn't.
You can have my health records when you pry them from my cold, dead hands.
The one concern that I would have about this in the hands of the consumer is data suppression. For 97% of people that is of no importance, but in a small percentage its pertinent. (I am an ER doctor, so necessarily I am a bit jaded.)
For example, I've been lied to many times by patients regarding narcotic pain medicine prescriptions. For example, I treated someone this year to whom I gave an rx for 30 vicodins. I get a letter a month later from the State Controlled Substance guys (because one physician who rx'd to this patient requested a print out of the patient's controlled substance prescription records - which triggers a letter sent to everyone who rx'd him controlled medicines in the past.) So this guy had gotten the equivalent of 30 vicodins daily over a period of a few months (from many doctors, using different pharmacies, often getting two or three rxs in one day.) This means either he is in fulminant liver failure from all the tylenol or he's selling it for fun'n'profit.
So now, if he returns to my hospital (or any of the physicians or hospitals he shopped at) any provider who has not seen him before can pull his record their and see his real history. That's the benefit of a record that is out of the hands of the patient. Now that is meaningless for the 97% of people who are above-board. However the fact that the 3% exist do mean that any patient maintained record that providers can't add to independent of the patient's wishes will be taken with at least a bit of a grain of salt in some circumstances. Your old EKG or Chest Xray is not going to be suspect, but the report that you have only filled one rx for vicodin in the past 6 years and your 'documented allergy' to every pain medicine except for vicodin might be a bit suspect.
Gambler demographic: You seem to be having some broken kneecaps. Would you like to buy the book '12 easy tips on how to repay your 30% loans before the end of the week, guaranteed'?
Soccer mom demographic: You seem to be having a broken hipbone. Would you like to buy the book '12 easy excuses to tell your husband when your secret lover is too rough in bed'?
School nerd demographic: You seem to be having a broken finger. Would you like to buy the book '12 easy ways to teach your football team a lesson they'll remember for a long time'?
Protester demographic: You seem to be having a broken arm. Would you like to buy the book '12 easy ways to taunt the cops safely in any street march'?
Soldier demographic: You seem to be having a broken foot. Would you like to buy the book '12 easy ways to break doors in during house to house combat'?
Microsoft wants your electronic medical records. So does Google. So do dozens of startups, some dead, some alive and well. What do all these privately owned for-profit companies' plans have in common? Profit motive. What do their data formats have in common? Not a thing. So if a patient's customary healthcare provider uses, say, U_Med_Data (a fictitious company, I hope), and her employer changes insurance carriers so she has to choose a new healthcare provider who uses, say, Microsoft or Google, U_Med_Data's proprietary data formats mean the patient's records can not be transferred to the new carrier's system except on paper, which of course defeats the purpose of EMRs.
Every large medical center has EMRs to promote in-system efficiency and communication. Their EMRs are bought from different vendors, then woven into the center's overall I.T. fabric, including billing of patients, primary and secondary insurers, prescription writing and filling, and case management. If the medical center wanted to change EMR providers, good luck, without a costly conversion. And if he patient changes to another provider, again, the records stay, or possibly get printed to send to the new provider.
Everyone agrees EMRs are great for efficiency, accuracy, and completeness - but the promise of EMRs is only a pipe dream without standards and interoperability, not to mention iron-clad built-in privacy and security to ensure that private records stay private.
I'd get you an evil meter, but it might not be calibrated, anyone has a pure 1000 kiloNazi signal to check with? The Cheyney reading is off the meter...
Nyekulturniy... Proudly confusing readers and editors since 1981!
There's no excuse for using Google for anything. This suggests that google is so fundamentally evil none of their products can be trusted. Considering Google's #1 motive seems to be to collect as much information as possible on the public There's no evidence that google is in any way, shape, or form, trying to acquire information specifically on the public. This little modifier makes it seem like google's ultimate goal is to know everything about everyone, regardless of the price paid. Google's real searching goal is to collect as much publicly available information on all subjects as possible. That's a huge difference. The GP wants to make it seem somehow Google has plans to control people via privileged information. it really makes you question their ultimate goals and wonder about how such a young company got so much funding so quickly to become the monolith they are. I can't even begin to fathom what they are suggesting here. Maybe that the NSA somehow funds google and there's some covert CIA plan to use google to take over the world? I think the ultimate gist of the quote is somehow google gets secret funding from some entity that ultimately wants total control over the world. The real reason google became so successful so quickly is because their leaders and founders are really really smart (shocking, I know). Most large tech companies are large because they got into the game early and made OK products w/ a little bit of strong arming. Google actually got into the market fairly late in the game with many many obstacles to overcome. They become popular based of products that were so superior people took a step back and said "why are we still using this garbage when google X is so much better". That takes a lot for people to do.
If an officer ever threatens to taze you, say you have a pacemaker.
As stated on http://www.google.com/corporate/, Google's mission is to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.
It's hardly surprising then, or nefarious, that Google's product announcements tend to focus on information gathering and management rather than, say, toasters.