Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) will enter the medical records business with The Cleveland Clinic, one of the top hospitals in the world.
According to The Wall Street Journal (subscription required), "Under the pilot, patients who already use Cleveland Clinic's personal health record system can securely share medical information such as prescriptions, conditions and allergies between the Cleveland Clinic system and a Google health-profile online."
The program is a good idea. Patients' records currently are tied to the data held by doctors and hospitals. If a patient wants to access his data or share it with other health-care providers, he has to request and wait, sometimes for days, to get information that could be very useful in his treatment.
The Google program may ruffle feathers of both doctors and health-care software management companies. Doctors are concerned with keeping records private. Once they are stored and accessible on the web this will be harder to control. Software companies that supply programs for managing medical records may find that the Google system competes with some of their business based on organizing and storing patient information.
But, for the patient who now has new-found access to his own data, the program gives him power over his own medical data.
Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
2-21-2008 @ 6:49PM
thomas johnson said...
This will be wonderful if the patient ultimately decides who has access to the "cloud" of medical information.
Leaving this power in the hands of third parties always seems to provide a way for insurance companies and other inrterlopers access to medical records.
2-22-2008 @ 9:52PM
Dr Julio Bonis said...
People is really sensible to the confidentiality of their medical data. It is critical information.
The danger with Google Health and HealthVault is that somebody in the future crack their security systems.
Also the fact about a private company getting data about your health must concern us.
There is an alternative, http://www.keyose.com/, designed by the doctor that described the first case of Wiiitis, its philosophy is based on total anonymous users. A smart mechanism allows the store of clinical record without asking you any personal data (not even your email).
Confidentiality is in such a way assured.