Google Enters Medical Records Business
First it was Microsoft with its
Health Vault, and then AOL's co-founder got into the game by offering
Revolution Health, which offers online tools for managing personal health histories. It was only a matter of time before Google jumped on the bandwagon.
Yesterday, Google announced a pilot program with the Cleveland Clinic to give patients and doctors better access to a central records system that stores their health information. The pilot, an invitation-only opportunity offered to a group of Cleveland Clinic personal health record (PHR) users, plans to enroll between 1,500 and 10,000 patients. It will test secure exchange of patient medical record data such as prescriptions, conditions and allergies between their Cleveland Clinic PHR to a secure Google profile in a live clinical delivery setting.
According to C. Martin Harris, MD, chief information officer, Cleveland Clinic, "this collaboration is intended to help Google test features and services that will ultimately allow all Americans (as patients) to direct the exchange of their medical information between their various providers without compromising their privacy."
The pilot will eventually extend Cleveland Clinic's online patient services to a broader audience while enabling the portability of patient data so patients can take their data with them wherever they go-even outside the Cleveland Clinic Health System.
So, is this how the development of a national PHR, and eventually EHRs, is going to go-big business will run it? Is that any better than a national system created and run by the government? And how is Microsoft or Google making any money off of their PHR systems? Will we see pop-up ads dashing across the screen when we're trying to manage our personal information?