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."

Translation

[Anonymous Coward]

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

awesome

[thatshortkid]

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!

Re:Translation

[Jarjarthejedi]

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.

The writing's on the wall

[Anonymous Coward]

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/ [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.

Oh hell no. Give me a USB drive and encryption.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Data mining

[quokkapox]

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.

Re:Oh hell no. Give me a USB drive and encryption.

[NIckGorton]

Excellent idea. Though if I were you, I would also consider emailing the pertinent stuff to yourself lest your drive be lost in the car wreck when you get to the ER. I have had patients in the past who said "If you can get me online I can get you my old EKG, medications list, etc" and that has been quite useful.

I would also like to fire them (and their ability to have access to my records) at whim.

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.

Re:Translation

[bigstrat2003]

No, the intelligent don't give a damn about ads, they learn to tune them out automatically.

I'm only part serious, of course (although that is what I do)... my point is to stop being smug about what you're doing, attitudes like that make life worse for everyone.

Re:old idea

[jd]

Yes, but name anything on the web today that wasn't being done by some combination of archie, gopher and WAIS. It all depends, of course, on the way in which this is done. There are MANY applications now for Linux for processing EEG and EKG data, CAT scans, MRIs and the like. Will either company develop formats that interoperate with these?

There are also packages specifically designed for indexing and sharing files. Will there be a DSpace filter supplied? Will Glimpse be able to search the metadata? Is any geographical data going to be in a format a GIS database can handle? (A person may wish to compare health information with where they were living at the time, for example. I'll assume for a moment that the data is confidential to the person concerned, at least in Europe where data privacy laws will be involved, and hopefully anonymous anywhere it's not confidential.)

Will data be correlatable or will each data chunk be in total isolation? Correlations might be interesting to people who suspect an undiagnosed underlying condition where multiple diagnosed symptoms exist and are treated, and might be a lot more convincing to doctors than patients who say "well, I don't think this really expensive treatment plan is working too well..."

It matters very little what people are saying they will code. Some things will prove intractable when the project specification is drawn up, when the developers try to implement it or when the managers run out of budget. Other things will evolve out of brainstorming sessions and wild drunken parties during the project. What actually ends up happening is rarely what is envisaged at the start, for all kinds of reasons. Sure, we can guess at what would be logical, but since when has a single project - Open Source, Closed Source or Hot Sauce - ever ended up being entirely - or even remotely - logical?

Because you might be unconcious

[riker1384]

If you had an encrypted USB stick and you become incapacitated, you wouldn't be be able to tell them what the key was. There would have to be some way for emergency personnel to access the records without help from the patient.

Re:The writing's on the wall

[FleaPlus]

Considering Google's #1 motive seems to be to collect as much information as possible on the public

Well, uh, yes. They're a search company. Collecting information on everything and anything is what they do.

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

Well yes, they must obviously be a branch of the CIA/Haliburton! If not them, then the Illuminati/Freemason coalition must be responsible for Google's large market cap. Brilliant.

Dear Google, dear Microsoft,

[Ihlosi]

You can have my health records when you pry them from my cold, dead hands.

Re:Translation

[Anonymous Coward]

The funny thing is that anybody would think that giving Google any significantly person information about themselves would be smart. It's been demonstrated time and again that Google isn't any more capable at keeping the asshats out than any other web service.

Well, if it's been demonstrated time and again that Google has hacked and user data has been stolen, you shouldn't have any trouble citing examples. Since I'm sure such events would have made the press, please post from reputable sources.

And they've really only managed to hit two home runs in all the efforts that they have made: Advertising, and a distance second, search. I suppose you could throw in the fact that they are really good at externalizing costs. We all pay for our internet connection and then a significant portion of our bandwidth is used solely for the benefit and profit of Google to stream ads all over your screen.

I'm sure Google pays plenty for its own bandwidth and internet access. I'm sorry you feel that websites should subsidize your internet access for content you chose to pull down. Personally I'm just happy that for one relatively low rate with an ISP I can access millions of useful websites; An amount of information access that is unparalleled in human history. While its true that sites have ads now, that's simply sound economics; The ".com" idiocy of 1999 is gone, and running sites costs money. Might I also add that Google's text ads are quite a bit less annoying (and less bandwidth heavy) than the now-common Flash, video, audio, and animated GIFs. Are a dozen 20-word ads really slowing down your internet connection and taking up a large portion of your bandwidth? Maybe its time to upgrade your 14.4 modem.

We're already paying an internet tax and it's going to Google.

Yeah I wish it could be free like television or radio. If you only watch PBS and listen to NPR, that is.

Google Mission Statement

[EmotionToilet]

"To organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful." And that's exactly that they seem to be doing. I don't get it when people argue that Google is evil because they want information. Information, and the processing or storage of it, is not a bad thing. It's a persons/organizations motivations that are capable of being good and bad. And generally Google = Good, other companies (Microsoft) = Bad.

Re:The writing's on the wall

[Eivind]

Their ultimate goal is plain as pie: Make a shitload of money. That tends to be the ultimate goal of most companies. You're correct to be suspicious: Their goal of making money may not align well with -your- various goals.

The future by discovery

[suv4x4]

I remember those three episodes by Discovery on our possible future.

In one of the episodes, some guy was pouring old urine in his own toilet, since the toilet was equipped with built-in analyzer. The analyzer would catch he had some beer yesterday, while the doctor told him his heath condition doesn't allow alcohol.

If the toilet detects he had beer, it'll go in his central medical record, his insurance company would see this, and he'd lose his medical insurance.

He later fell through a window after an accident, and the blood test went to the insurance company again, and he lost his insurance, remaining to be left dying, although this had nothing to do with his health condition prior to the accident.

EMRs Useless without Interoperability

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:The writing's on the wall

[Ctrl-Z]

You must be from a parallel universe. Did you not see what AltaVista had become around the time Google arrived? I suppose if you were blocking ads then it was just fine, but be realistic.

When has google ever abused your info?

[porkThreeWays]

I'm not sure when people started trusting Oracle, MS, Sun, Apple, etc, more than Google. Every one of the previously mentioned companies have burned me with marketing schemes, mistrust, EULA's, and flat out lies... except Google. This technology shift is going to happen regardless. I'd MUCH rather have Google housing my information than Microsoft. Google has never abused my trust.

People cry constantly about Google having too much information. They have just as much information as everyone else. They are just so much smarter they can index it and search it instantly. When Google abuses my information I'll stop trusting them. But when they've given me consistently high quality software for free, never mislead me or lied to me, well... I'm sure as hell quicker to support a company with such a great track record than a company that makes it its business to deceive its customers.

Gee, I wonder

[porkThreeWays]

Let's pick it apart as to why the post is a troll

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.

Google mission statement

[Gorimek]

As stated on http://www.google.com/corporate/ [google.com], 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.

Re:Translation

[bzipitidoo]

You must be real young or not live in America, where any health info known about yourself can and will be used against you. Pre-existing conditions, you know. Fix America's evil health care system, and then this might be ok. Or if your health and genes are perfect, you've never suffered debilitating exposure to carcinogens, toxins, and the like, then showing off might be safe. Even if there wasn't a problem with health info providing vast opportunity to find some excuse to deny some coverage, I'm still not sure I'd want nosy neighbors and the like being able to find out all about my health.

Re:Oh hell no. Give me a USB drive and encryption.

[lahi]

The obvious solution is to consider the data as a record of the relation between the health care provider and the patient. Both have interests in preserving a copy of these data, and in ensuring that they are not tampered with. So obviously each should store a copy, signed by each party. The health care provider could optionally be allowed or required by law to store the data for a certain period and/or discard the data after a certain time.

The question is, would it be prudent to impose a similar requirement on the patient? And how about giving consent to access old records? In a world of commercial medicine like the USA, this is perhaps not the same choice as in a world of primarily public/social medicine like Denmark. Should it be legal for insurance companies to require full disclosure in order to get insurance? I think not, but then, I'm all for public/social medicine.

Finally there is the issue about access to these records in an emergency, where the patient is unconscious and cannot give consent. A more or less centralized backup service could store the complete health record of a person, but encrypted, so that only people or organisations designated by the patient have an emergency key, and can gain access to just those data the patient has deemed desirable to expose in case of an emergency. For instance, a person who had been cured from an STD, would not want the record of the STD to be accessible, as it wouldn't matter much in an emergency, whereas data such as blood type, or severe medical allergies, would definitely matter. But would AIDS for example be a condition that should be required in the emergency records?

Making the decisions would not be easy for the patient, and most people would rather not be bothered to have to manage their own copy of the records, so perhaps the persons usual GP would be a good compromise for a designated Health Record manager for the patient. Of course, this results in a potential conflict of interest, so there would have to be a solution that would allow the patient to at least monitor any access (and object to illegal or unfounded access) to his records, that was granted by the GP. Hence the centralized third party backup or storage service.

-Lasse

Re:No you don't

[lahi]

Sure he does. If I give you a beer, that beer is free. For you that is. I probably paid for it. If a group of people pool their money to buy a couple of beer crates, and party - guess what: the beer is free. Even though everyone in the group paid for it. Why? Because of the implication, that enough beer is bought, so that the likelihood of anyone being "thirsty" afterwards, is sufficiently small. There is no restriction that you can only drink whatever it is you actually paid for. Sure, some will drink a bit more than they actually paid for, and others less, but if the group is sufficiently homogeneous, the discrepancy should be negligible. So why bother with the overhead of accounting for each and every beer - it only makes the hangover worse?

The grandparent doesn't pay his health care with his taxes; he pays for the right to have free access to health care. There is a great difference in that. It is both a form of insurance and a form of wealth redistribution. Insurance, because you pay a small amount, which may or may not be returned to you as health care. (I once attended a statistics lecture, where the professor said that insurance is a bet you make with the insurance company, that you will become sick. A bet that you would probably prefer to lose.) And wealth redistribution because a poor person will probably benefit more (or rather: pay less) than a rich person. In both cases it is a form of risk distribution. Some "libertarians" might say that this is not good. But as the risk of many forms of bad health are distributed "unfairly", by chance or genetics, I believe that it is right for society to compensate for this unfair distribution. Being genetically predisposed to a disease is not something a person can make an informed choice about, and anyone can get injured in an accident - so why not lessen the consequences of these risks by sharing them?

An interesting observation is that for a "social" system to work properly, there seems to be a requirement for an initial state of relative homogeneity. In a very flat society where the difference between poor and rich is small, the rich people will lose relatively little. if the difference is large, the top side will be very reluctant to change to a system of fair redistribution. Even though such a system would probably - viewed as a whole - benefit a lot more from it.

-Lasse