Did the good doctors read my story from over a month ago called Google Health is Frightening?In an article in The New England Journal of Medicine, two leading researchers warn that the entry of big companies like Microsoft and Google into the field of personal health records could drastically alter the practice of clinical research and raise new challenges to the privacy of patient records.
The authors, Dr. Kenneth D. Mandl and Dr. Isaac S. Kohane, are longtime proponents of the benefits of electronic patient records to improve care and help individuals make smarter health decisions.
There are those in Washington and around the country (Paul Krugman is one) who believe that electronic, portable charts are the key to universal health care. Krugman regular cites the Veterans Administration as an example, since they use some electronic records. The big difference is a) they keep it in-house, and b) they are a single organization. If I wanted to send my VA records to a private doctor, I would have to jump through way more hoops than just telling Google it's OK...and I should have to. Hillary Clinton regularly throws out "e-charts" as the solution to all our problems, and more centralization of records was a big part of her failed 1993 "Hillarycare" plan that she is so loathe to discuss now.
This should not be easy.
Google should be commended for trying to simplify health care record keeping, but this is an arena where they should keep their mitts off. If they want to sell a "black box" turnkey solution for internal record keeping, go for it, but I will still insist on paper. Host my records for me? Go away.
How many times do I have to repeat myself?
