05 March 2009

For Google, a health problem shared is....

Google are all about sharing it would seem. The Internet giant's push to digitise health records was first launched back in May 2008 and entitled Google Health. Now, the chaps behind the ambitious online filing cabinet have launched a feature that allows users to share their online medical records with selected health professionals, friends, and "loved ones", according to CNET News.

Sharing with Google Health is simple. Select email addresses for those you wish to share medical history, conditions, and treatments with, and Google sends them a link to your profile.

This latest push to make private health records more readily available to others has offered Google alarmists fuel for their already well-stoked fire.

Google defends its strategy by suggesting that strict security measures are in place to protect sensitive information. They insist that it puts "you in charge of your health", and that the "link to patient's profiles will only work in connection with those people's email addresses" and not if the email is forwarded to a third party. In addition, they laud the ready availability of relevant medical records as vital in times of emergency.

However, besides obvious clandestine theories surrounding Google's incentives, the relevancy of the application itself has been called into questions over a series of concerns.

The importance of having up-to-date health information on your nearest and dearest, when it counts, is undisputed; however, the availability of said records in the first instance requires users not only to register with Google Health, but to update their online profile with some degree of regularity to ensure accuracy.

More confusing still, Google have made it possible for you to print out a hard copy of your record to keep on your person, in your wallet, or such. However, unless you plan to update and print it out regularly, recorded information would lose its worth, becoming of little value in the emergency situation Google bets its very relevancy on.

Another concern of merit regards the emailed link, which is only valid for 30 days. Google insist that this is an enhanced security feature. However, the temporary nature of access invites questioning over the long-term relevancy of the application. Unless you plan to constantly email friends and family a link to your health records on a monthly basis, the application inevitably runs into questionable value.

Google Health is not alone; Microsoft's 'medical records service' is called HealthVault. Curiously though, while President Obama seeks to digitise medical records in the United States as part of health care reform policy, and shares the presumed values of the computing and Internet behemoths, he has received cautious criticism from certain online corners, notably Microsoft's Peter Neupert.

Neupert, former chief to online pharmacy Drugstore.com, now head of Microsoft's health care unit, is "urging caution as the government looks to spend billions on digitising health care", according to CNET News. Neupert advises, "Don't focus on spending money on tech per se. Focus on what outcomes we want". Perhaps Obama's plea to bring the digitising of health records in-house doesn't quite offer the computing greats the financial opportunities they were banking on with their own efforts.

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