Although written two years ago, a post by Vince Kuraitis on the e-CareManagement blog seems timely:

“Google Health promises to simutaneously create and dominate the market for next generation personal health records (PHRs). There is nothing else in our solar system or in the entire universe like it.”

What follows is an extensive analysis on the impact that Google could have on not only the individual patient but also on health system reform itself.

So, has anything changed since then? Well, there is still no central repository for PHRs. But with the heated debate about health system reform, Google, Microsoft, and their ilk are trying to stay in the fray. In fact, they aren’t too happy with what they are hearing from the Obama administration regarding health information technology (Health IT).

They would like to see Health IT information rolled out on web-based platforms (theirs, of course) instead of the network of “outdated database systems” that they feel the government is proposing.

What do you think? Do Google and Microsoft have our best interests in mind?

Is your personal health information fair game for free market capitalism?

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There is a nice compendium of resources on electronic health records recently posted on Nursing Online Education Database entitled The Ultimate Guide to Taking Control of Your Health Records by Alisa Miller. This includes not only sites and tools for consumers but also for medical practices.

If you don’t think do-it-yourself electronic health records is going to be big in the near future, take note that none other than Google and Microsoft are getting into the act. True, they currently offer free resources for consumers but already there are companies looking for ways to make a buck off of the EHR industry.

Medical practices in competitive niches may want to consider some type of portal, either as part of their EMR system or in conjunction with their website, in order to communicate more effectively with their patients. This could be anything from offering email communication with physicians to allowing patients to access their medical records, just like Google.

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Microsoft’s HealthVault hopes to bring EMRs to consumersYou can always tell when a particular industry is getting hot: when big tech players start jockeying for position. Microsoft, AOL, and Google are all announcing different electronic medical records initiatives.

Microsoft has unveiled what it calls HealthVault , a sort of personal filing cabinet for storing important medical information on yourself and your family. It allows the consumer to give access to physicians or hospitals. It also includes HealthVault Search, a health search tool designed to work with the platform. Accessible on the HealthVault Web site, this search engine promises to “intuitively [organize] the most relevant online health content, allowing people to refine searches faster and with more accuracy, and eventually connect them with HealthVault-compatible solutions.”

This latter feature. or dream, to be able to connect to other compatible solutions, is part of the eventual goal of a nationalized electronic health record repository. Is this a new idea? No. It has been tried before with limited success. But now that some big players are jumping into the fray, we may see some momentum.

Still, there are some unanswered questions. HealthVault, for example, does not need to be HIPAA-compliant because patients are granting access to whomever they choose. How this would mesh with true electronic medical records, which must be HIPAA-compliant, remains to be seen. There are also concerns about security – who actually owns the information and what happens if there is a security breach?

With less than 15% of medical practices using true EMR systems, consumers may end up beating doctors to the punch.

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