Google to Begin Storing Patients' Health Records 214
mytrip writes with news that Google's health record archive is about to be tested with the assistance of the Cleveland Clinic. Thousands of patients (who must approve the transfer of information) will have access to everything from their medical histories to lab results through what Google considers a "logical extension" of their search engine. We discussed the planning of this system last year.
"Each health profile, including information about prescriptions, allergies and medical histories, will be protected by a password that's also required to use other Google services such as e-mail and personalized search tools. The health venture also will provide more fodder for privacy watchdogs who believe Google already knows too much about the interests and habits of its users as its computers log their search requests and store their e-mail discussions. Prodded by the criticism, Google last year introduced a new system that purges people's search records after 18 months. In a show of its privacy commitment, Google also successfully rebuffed the U.S. Justice Department's demand to examine millions of its users' search requests in a court battle two years ago."
Double-edged sword (Score:5, Interesting)
How much access? (Score:4, Interesting)
National Security Letters? (Score:2, Interesting)
So all this talk about Google standing up to protect user data from the US Administration is as true and verifiable as their motto itself ("Don't be evil").
Microsoft HealthVault (Score:1, Interesting)
In fact (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Great... (Score:5, Interesting)
If anything, Microsoft is ahead in the game of press releases, but certainly not in a functioning and useful Electronic Health Records system.
HIPAA compliance? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Cleveland Clinic (Score:5, Interesting)
It only makes sense for a trusted third party (with technical expertise) to hold onto this data. Personally, I trust a government (state or federal) or non-profit program with community oversight to a for-profit corporation for this. Others may simply not want any digital health records, just like some folks don't want to have online access to their bank account.
Re:Google VS Microsoft (Score:2, Interesting)
Privacy Ammendment (Score:4, Interesting)
As a professor of Constitutional law at the University of Chicago, he should be abundantly aware of how fragile our right to privacy is in this country, being that it's an inferred right that rests only on precedent.
Potential for research? (Score:3, Interesting)
As a poster above noted, finding a way to query the data is a problem. Finding ways to anonymize patient information is a problem(how many elements of medical history does it take to identify a human?) But in the end, if google were subsidizing my health care, I just might say do whatever the fuck you want with my charts!
Which brings this back to one of the question of the century: When will the consumer own it's own data? Today this might be a service Google looks to sell as "You pay us to data warehouse your medical records", but tomorrow it might be "You pay us to mine the data warehouse that we've established."
Are the inconsistencies of patients chart data too much of an obstacle to overcome? I'd hate to think that Google is just doing this as a form of Web 2.0 SAS, 'pay me to do what you used to do yourself' service. I've always imagined that Google figures, if they get enough data in one place, something magical will happen. Medical research of millions or hundreds of millions of patient histories seems like it could be magical.
Re:Great... (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Double-edged sword (Score:4, Interesting)
Same as with tax records, really: Not every paper solution is automatically non-fragile.