The Yabuts of Sharing Data Between Google Health and HealthVault

“Yesterday’s post ended with the optimistic observation that Google Health and Microsoft HealthVault have agreed in principle that the platforms will be open and interoperable. (Presumably) you’ll be able to either 1) move all your data from Google Health to HealthVault, or vice versa, and 2) be able to transfer data across networks, e.g., your doctor has signed up with HealthVault and the lab belongs to Google Health, but because the platforms are open and interoperable data will pass across the network and your doctor will get lab results seamlessly.”
Article
Vince Kuraitis, e-CareManagement Blog, 13 November 2008

Medicare tests multiple PHRs including Google

“A Medicare test of Personal Health Records due to start soon in Utah and Arizona may also be a test of Google’s market power.
Google Health is one of four vendors authorized to offer PHR services under the pilot to Medicare fee-for-service patients.”
Article
Dana Blankenhorn, ZDNet Healthcare, 13 November 2008

Medicare launches PHR pilot in Arizona, Utah

“Medicare beneficiaries in Arizona and Utah are poised to begin a personal health record pilot in early 2009, and on Wednesday Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt announced the four participating PHR companies.”
Article
Bernie Monegain, Healthcare IT News, 12 November 2008

9.1M Users for Google and/or Microsoft Health Platforms

“The DoD is facing the same issues as its private sector counterparts with unsustainable growth in healthcare spending, which is now estimated to be well over $43B in 2008. A key contributor to that growth has been medications, growing from $1.6B in 2000 to $6.2B in 2006.”
Article
John Moore, Chilmark Research, 6 November 2008

Google Health Manager Discusses User Feedback

“Google Health product manager Roni Zeiger remains highly optimistic about the fledgling but high-profile personal health record (PHR) service and data-aggregation platform, but is trying to assuage concerns about consumer privacy and tamp down expectations that the Internet search leader might be able to cure all that ails health care.”
Article
Neil Versel, Digital Healthcare & Productivity, 4 November 2008

Google Health application to help patient search for help with prescriptions

“A new application released by Google Health is designed to help users find assistance programs for their prescription medications online using PatientAssistance.com.”
Article
Bernie Monegain, Healthcare IT News, 3 November 2008

Healthy debate on electronic health records

“Backed by both presidential candidates, Silicon Valley tech giants and other companies are leading an effort to create electronic health records containing data about your most intimate health conditions — from your bunions and bad back to your chronic hemorrhoids and psychiatric history — so the information can be easily shared with doctors, insurers and others.”
Article
Steve Johnson, Mercury News, 31 October 2008

‘Beter dan Google Health’

“Weerwoord ministerie Volksgezondheid op kritiek landelijk EPD
Onder medici en in de media is veel beroering over het landelijk elektronisch patiëntendossier. Het zou niet werken, onveilig zijn en technisch al niet meer van deze tijd. Het ministerie van Volksgezondheid reageert op uiteenlopende bezwaren, vervat in tien stellingen. Conclusie: veel kritiek berust op misverstanden.
Minister Ab Klink zet de vaart erin: volgend jaar is het landelijk elektronisch patiëntendossier (EPD) een feit. Zorgverleners weten voortaan met één druk op de knop wat de patiënt op medisch gebied heeft meegemaakt. Overdrachtsfouten zijn verleden tijd.”
Article (Dutch)
Heleen Croonen, Medicsh Contact, 31 October 2008

Google, Microsoft, Dossia & WebMD: Panel Highlights

“One of the treats of this week’s Connected for Health Symposium was the opportunity to moderate a panel entitled: Personal Health Information Platforms and Records: What’s the Nitty-Gritty Situation on the Ground?”
Article
John Moore, Chilmark Research, 29 October 2008

New Google Health Application Helps Users Find Patient Assistance Programs for Medications Using PatientAssistance.com

“PatientAssistance.com, Inc, a nonprofit organization providing information on thousands of patient assistance programs to help users better manage and reduce prescription drug costs, announced today the release of a new integrated service on the Google Health platform. The new application enables users to automatically search for patient assistance drug programs they are eligible for based on the medications included in their Google Health profile.”
Article
PRWeb, 28 October 2008

Personal health record platform makers look to engage the users

“Someday it will be routine for physicians and their patients to use personal health records. But the companies building those engines aren’t taking that for granted.
Officials from Google Health, Dossia, WebMD and Microsoft discussed ways to engage both physicians and consumers during the Center for Connected Health symposium Monday in Boston.”
Article
Bernie Monegain, Healthcare IT News, 28 October 2008

Google Health to play a bigger part in Continua Alliance

“On Monday, Telecare Aware flagged up that the large companies comprising Dossia have joined the Continua Alliance. The implication was that by pushing for consumer-initiated change their presence will further strengthen the world-wide standard-setting role that the Alliance is carving out. On top of that, it was announced yesterday that Google Health, which has been a contributing member for some time, is going to play a more active part.”
Article
Telecare Aware, 22 October 2008

Halamka: PHRs promote transparency, which makes everyone a winner

“One of the more forceful voices in healthcare offered his opinion of personal health records this past week at the New England HIMSS Chapter Conference on HIT.
“Patients should be stewards of their own data,” said John Halamka, MD, chief information officer Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School, during the conference in South Portland, Maine.”
Article
Molly Merrill, Healthcare IT News, 20 October 2008

Online health records: New frontier in a ‘wild, wild West’

“The new online health accounts that give consumers a way to store and keep track of their medical data are the newest frontier in the unregulated terrain of electronic health records.
While laws like the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) provide certain protections for records, online health accounts fall outside those regulations because the commercial entities offering them – Google, Microsoft, WebMD and Revolution Health to name a few – are not “health care providers”, nor does the data necessarily fall under the definition of a “medical record”.”
Article
Sylvia Hsieh, Medical Law Report, 17 October 2008

Microsoft Healthvault: Coke, Pepsi or Intel Inside

“When Microsoft launched its HealthVault application last year — the first major commercial Personal Health Record (PHR) system on the open web — the Wall Street Journal reported that “Consumers are just not that excited about these services.”  A year later, I’m wondering: have they given us reason to be more excited now?  Last week, I grilled HealthVault’s rival Google Health about the progress they are making.  Are these big players trying too hard to be all things to all people?  Or, with their rather generic “personal health platforms,” do they end up offering nothing much of value, especially to people living with chronic illness?”
Article
Amy Tenderich, The Health Care Blog, 14 October 2008

Google Health: Is It Good For You?

“Slowly but surely, using the Internet for your health needs is becoming as mainstream as shopping on the web: no longer futuristic, but is it for everyone?  And perhaps more importantly, are mainstream commercial health platforms from companies like Google and Microsoft really useful for people with specific chronic illnesses?  I thought it would be interesting to hear their side of the story.
So please welcome Missy Krasner, Product Marketing Manager for Google Health, whom I was lucky enough to catch up with for an interview last week.”
Article
Amy Tenderich, The Health Care Blog, 7 October 2008

PHR Platforms Race: HealthVault Updated, Consumer Interest Still Unproven

“Last two years brought unprecedented interest in Personal Health Records (PHRs). Started in healthcare industry outlets the excitement crossed over into traditional media and the expectations are high.”
Article
Hippocrates, Trusted MD, 7 October 2008

The search is on

“Data privacy remains a top concern as Google seeks more users, partners for its new personal health-record platform.”
Article
Rebecca Vesely, Modern Healthcare, 29 September 2008

iPHR 2008 Market Report: Executive Summary

“This 20pg Executive Summary, which is being offered for free, highlights the findings of Chilmark Research’s recently published comprehensive report on Internet-based Personal Health Record (iPHR) market, which was released in late May 2008. Exec. Summary provides an overview of market trends for Internet-based PHR solutions as well analysis on the future impact of major platforms from Dossia, Google and Microsoft.”
Report
Chilmark Research, October 2008

Some Clues About the Microsoft Healthcare IT Strategy

“I recently received a comment from a healthcare blogger, Dr. Peter Kim, in response to my note about Microsoft’s EMR product, Amalga (see: Amalga Makes Inroads in the EMR World). It raises some interesting points so I reproduce it below. You may want to take a look at Dr. Kim’s blog (see: The EMR/EHR Show). He has also blogged specifically about Google’s role in EMR development (see: Is Google The Answer To EMR?).”
Article
Bruce Friedman, Lab Soft News, 30 September 2008

HealthVault Surges, Google Flounders

“Late last week I received a note from Sean Nolan, Chief Architect for Microsoft�s HealthVault. While Sean and I certainly share a passion for the home town team, the Red Sox, he was not writing to share the joy of seeing the Red Sox capture a play-off berth. No, Sean was writing to tell me about his latest post, a post where he discusses where HealthVault is today and how one might use HealthVault to manage their personal health.”
Article
John Moore, Chilmark Research, 29 September 2008

EPD-vraagstuk botst met Health2.0-werkelijkheid

“Het elektronisch pati�ntendossier (EPD) haalde deze maand de troonrede. Voor de regering is het dit najaar er op of er onder: het landelijk dossier inclusief schakelpunt moet er komen. Een kaderwet met daarin de verplichtstelling dat op 1 september 2009 zorgverleners, huisartsen, apothekers en ziekenhuizen deel moeten nemen aan het landelijk schakelpunt, moet leiden tot het succesvol einde van een langlopend overheidsproject. De Tweede Kamer lijkt minister Klink te steunen, maar tegelijkertijd wijzen steeds meer marktpartijen het landelijk EPD af. Huisartsen, zorgbestuurders en zelf de Raad voor de Volkgezondheid plaatsen kritische kanttekeningen. Online dossiers als Google Health worden als oplossing genoemd. Health2.0-toepassingen lijken het bastion van het EPD te kraken. Een inzicht in de discussie.”
Article (Dutch)
Martijn Hulst, FrankWatching, 26 September 2008

Confusion behind the dikes

In The Netherlands the implementation of a country wide EHR is a complicated process, as is the case in� many Europena countries.

The HIMSS report from August stated that:

The Dutch government does not intend to develop a centralized EPR system, choosing instead to store medical data at the several local sources where they were captured. It should become possible to combine relevant medical data from these local sources into a national virtual EHR system. (p.24)
Existing legislation regarding health data protection starts with the patientprovider relationship. It does not allow for centralized storage of patient health information. (p.25)

Read the rest of this entry »

Google Health en Microsoft Health Vault Persoonlijk zorgdossier nuttige aanvulling op EPD

“Al jaren kunnen pati�nten zelf medische gegevens vastleggen, bijvoorbeeld via internet of op een USB-stick. In sommige systemen voor pati�nten kunnen ook gegevens vanuit de computer van hun zorgverlener worden geladen. Tot nu toe worden dit soort oplossingen slechts op beperkte schaal gebruikt. Doordat vorig jaar grote ICT-spelers als Microsoft en Google aankondigden ook producten op dit gebied te gaan leveren, is de aandacht hiervoor snel toegenomen. De generieke naam die het meest gebruikt wordt is Personal Health Record (PHR). Sommigen zien hierin de oplossing voor goede overdracht van gegevens in de gezondheidszorg. De invoering van een landelijk EPD zou hiermee in hun ogen zelfs overbodig worden.
De vraag rijst wat we nu werkelijk van deze ontwikkeling kunnen verwachten. In dit artikel worden de overwegingen op een rij gezet. Belangrijkste conclusie: het is niet of-of maar en-en.”
Article (Dutch)
Nictiz, 17 September 2008

New Frontiers in PHRs

“Normally talk about �new ecosystems� might be heard at a wildlife conference, but it dominated the presentations given in Washington on September 17 during a conference on �New Frontiers in Personal Health Records� sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF).”
Article
Stephen Barlas, Digital Healthcare & Productivity, 23 September 2008

Allscripts integrates e-prescribing solution into Google Health

“Allscripts officials say they have integrated their e-prescribing solution with Google Health to offer physicians a new means of sharing patient medication history.
The integration between Allscripts and Google will allow patients to securely transfer medication history, allergies and conditions from their physician’s Allscripts ePrescribe application to their Google Health account.”
Article
Molly Merrill, Healthcare IT News, 18 September 2008

Cloud computing puts your health data at risk

“The advent of “in the cloud” medical records services, such as Microsoft HealthVault and Google Health, promises an explosion in the storage of personal health-care information online.
But these services pose sticky privacy questions � unless you know how to protect your personal medical records.”
Article
Stuart J. Johnston, Windows Secret, 18 September 2008

Consumer control over personal medical data is coming to Canada

“Technology that claims to put consumers instead of institutions in control of their own healthcare information is coming. But with it comes new privacy and security worries.
Beta versions of Google Health and Microsoft HealthVault - both examples of new personal health record (PHR) technology - were launched last year. These free software products allow consumers to store and manage their personal medical data in structured repositories online.”
Article
Rosie Lombardi, InterGovWorld.com, 8 September 2008

Nictiz: �Persoonlijk zorgdossier nuttige aanvulling op EPD�

“De persoonlijke zorgdossiers van Google en Microsoft kunnen een nuttige aanvulling vormen op het landelijk EPD. Google Health en Health Vault van Microsoft maken het landelijk EPD echter niet overbodig. Dat stelt Nictiz in een artikel dat deze week op de website wordt gezet.”
Article (Dutch)
Mario Gibbels, ICTZorg, 9 September 2008

Going live with Microsoft HealthVault

“Last week, Beth Israel Deaconess went live with Microsoft Health Vault, just as we went live with Google Health last May. Like Google Health, using it is completely optional and patient controlled.”
Article
John Halamka, Life as a Healthcare CIO