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Google to Offer Online Personal Health Records

Posted by samzenpus on from the google-your-liver-profile dept.

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."

10 of 242 comments (clear)

  1. Translation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    We don't have enough of your personal data. Why don't you let us have your health records too?

    1. Re:Translation by Jarjarthejedi · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Unfortunately that's pretty close to the facts...Google is starting to get closer and closer to that satirical picture where someone googles "Where are my Car Keys" and Google actually knows. For some this may be a boon, but it also has negative impacts as well.

      --
      There are two kinds of fool One says 'This is old therefore good' Another says 'This is new therefore better'- Dean Ing
    2. Re:Translation by sonamchauhan · · Score: 5, Interesting

      :-) Imagine a Google-search enabled roomba going about it's daily business, picking up things like RFID tags on your car keys, updating your 'Google home' database. When you lose the keys, search your Google home "where are my car keys" and it pops up a map of your house illustrating the last known position.

    3. Re:Translation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Geeze, you're sure right. I Googled 'anal warts' and their first result was "Hi, Ed, who lives at 1425 Maryland Avenue. For $50, we won't tell your wife you queried about this."

    4. Re:Translation by russ1337 · · Score: 5, Funny

      we might even be able to track our teenagers and spouses...

      You don't need to track your wife...

      she's at my place.
    5. Re:Translation by Dekortage · · Score: 5, Funny

      You don't need to track your wife... she's at my place.

      I know. Gives me more time to spend with my girlfriends.

      --
      $nice = $webHosting + $domainNames + $sslCerts
  2. awesome by thatshortkid · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.
  3. Oh hell no. Give me a USB drive and encryption. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  4. Data mining by quokkapox · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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
  5. What data? by NIckGorton · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.