Google Health 2018: Best -- and Worst -- Case Scenarios

On the face of it, Google Health released this month in beta is just another personal medical record system similar to a hundred others including Microsoft's HealthVault. But Google has designed a specifically open health record: providers, payers and all kinds of service companies can use the published Application Programmer Interface to link their data to your Google health file.

Since Google is not a healthcare provider, the privacy restrictions of HIPPA, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 don't apply. Health IT security guru Fred Trotter describes why this is a good thing, and we went brainstorming to see how open architecture might affect wellness, sex, eldercare, insurance and other health concerns.

Read Google Health 2018: Best Case Scenarios.

Read Google Health 2018: Worst Case Scenarios.

The glass is half-full or half-empty. Add your comments below, and or a different comment perspective, see the thread on these articles at Slashdot.

Comments

[Scott Smith]

I read with interest your blog about Google Health 2018. MyMedicalRecords.com (MMR) is an advanced patient health record PHRs) and an Integrated Service Provider on Google Health. We believe we have addressed many of the objections people have to putting their health records online.

Using MMR, complete patient records can be easily faxed, voiced, or uploaded into a password-secured, web-based account. An emergency log-in feature also allows access to your critical medical information in the event of an emergency, and it has a drug interaction database for prescriptions, as well as many other features.

Perhaps you and your readers would like to test drive MMR by signing up for 30 days free using the promotion code TRYMMR.
Scott Smith
MyMedicalRecords.com
[email protected]
10100 Santa Monica Blvd #430
Los Angeles CA 90069
888-808-4667 ext. 123

[Travis]

I think the worst case scenarios are more likely than the best case scenarios. After all, we're already having everything tied to our FICO score, as if that has anything to do with the price of tea in China. (If you don't have the right amount of debt and don't keep it, your FICO score doesn't even exist... meaning you pay more for car insurance, etc. Stupid!!!)

[Stan Smith]

I think that the real issue is how long will society bicker about the worst case scenarios delaying the best case scenarios.

Some of those are either already occurring in some fashion, or will be soon, even without e-health records.

And who is to say which scenarios are worse than others? Personally, I see that some of the "worst case" scenarios, as presented, are actually good and the root cause is socio-economic which should probably be addressed first. (e.g. "Drug Compliance", "Public Health", "Physician's Practice")

I guess it comes down to risk and how much we as a society are willing to accept to get the benefits.

[Jack Powers]

Stan:

The Best and the Worst are sometimes pretty close. (STD reporting is vital but sensitive; the Public Health difference comes in which way decisions are made.)

The eternal problem for society is that the machine gets built without a lot of deliberation. Tech pioneer Ted Nelsen said, "If the button is not shaped by the thought, the thought will be shaped by the button."

[John Brennan]

The the Best Case Scenario, how about the obvious? Person changes health insurance carries five times in 10 years. In that time, primary physician changes 8 times. All the records are in one place.

[Bernie]

I had a bike wreck three weeks ago and fractured my pelvic bone. If I could have given the Emergency room and the hospital my health records online, they wouldn't have had to ask me 14 times if I was allergic to any medicines. My wife wouldn't have had to deal with the clipboard full of forms.

In the subsequent hospital stay when my blood pressure came up high, they didn't know if was always high, or whether it was a result of the accident or the pain medication. If I could have given them my Google health record, they could have seen what it's been on my checkups, what it was when I did a colonoscopy, what it was when I had by gall bladder taken out.

When I did the follow-up with the general practitioner two weeks later for blood pressure, they wouldn't have needed to hand me the clipboard with three pages of forms, they could have downloaded it. And since they had no access to the hospital charts, we had conversations about what had gone on there.

Followup at the bone specialist indicated that what he had determined at the hospital was not available to him at his office. The man had two sets of my medical records going on - one at his office, and one at the hospital. And of course no idea what the general practitioner was doing. Oh, and a third clipboard.

I fully recognize that there are privacy issues here, and I think there needs to be password levels for me, and password levels I can give to my doctors (audit trails for everybody, and limited periods during which they can write to my record once I've given them access), but I think the benefits of a Doctor actually knowing what the hell is going on might outweight whatever privacy issues exist. Privacy is an issue, yes. Accurate health information is a higher priority. There's an old quotation from Larry Ellison that comes to mind . . .