New Google PHR

Health Management Technology,  April, 2008  

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Google's new personal health record (PHR) service will be an open system, enabling third party vendors to integrate their own services directed at consumers, so says Google CEO Eric Schmidt. Speaking before a packed house at the 2008 Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society, Schmidt also informed the crowd that the PHR would contain no advertising and that no personal consumer information would be shared without consent.

While espousing the standard mantra that PHRs would help doctors to improve patient care, Schmidt reiterated that trust was most important to Google and that this company's PHR enables consumers to control who ultimately accesses their records. However, since HIPAA does not apply to Google, it is unclear what recourse consumers would have in the event that their private health records do end up in the wrong hands. Understandably, privacy advocates, such as Pare Dixon, executive director at World Privacy Forum, are urging caution.

Nevertheless, representatives (many of whom are M.D.s) from provider organizations, health plans, foundations, hospitals and top companies, as well as from the American Medical Association and the American Heart Association, have signed on with Google's Health Advisory Council. And, the list of companies partnering with Google to integrate their EHR products into Google Health continues to grow.

A pilot program involving volunteers at the Cleveland Clinic is underway that could include up to 10,000 patients who are among 100,000 patients already using the clinic's own PHR system, according to reports on the clinic's Web site.

COPYRIGHT 2008 Nelson Publishing
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning