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So far, much of the functionality of Google Health centers on prescriptions. Users can upload information from a number of pharmacies, and the program warns patients of potential drug interactions. "Making it easy for more people to access and control their prescription history is important because it represents an opportunity for people to better understand their medications and why they are taking them, and to make them more aware of safety issues that commonly occur as a result of drug interactions," says Roni Zeiger, a physician and a product manager at Google. He estimates that with the recent addition of CVS/pharmacy to the list, more than 100 million people in the United States can import a copy of their prescription records into Google Health.
My online pharmacy hasn't partnered with Google, so I entered my current prescriptions by hand. I then had the option of using a number of online tools that can search for cheaper alternatives to existing prescriptions, create a prescription schedule, or alert patients to recalls or new drugs. To use these tools, you must grant the program access to your health record, which may be a security concern for some. (You can end that link at any time by changing the settings on your Google Health account.)
Thus far, these services seem to have limited value. When I used one to search for cheaper alternatives to an inhaler I use for asthma, it returned a long list of options, including theophylline, a drug that I used to take as a kid and which physicians now rarely prescribe due to its jittery side effects. The service did not rate the different drugs according to their similarity to the existing medication, such as whether they are part of the same class of drugs, or according to the severity of potential side effects.
One of Google Health's most recent features is the ability to share online medical records. "The sharing feature has been especially helpful because it enables a patient to communicate their medical history to caregivers and family members," says John Halamka, chief information officer at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, one of the facilities that allows patients to import their medical records into Google Health.
For now, the electronic medical record I have through my physician's office is more useful than my Google Health record. But as more physicians' offices go digital, I expect that to change.
In the wake of Google Health's collapse, one company hopes to promote personal health tracking through employers.
Google would have had to fix a balkanized U.S. health-care system to make the service catch on.
Guest (irrationality)
It's not exactly a useful description of my back problems and the treatments that I've had to date, but perhaps a physician's trained eye would view it differently.
What makes you so sure? There is much discussion within the medical community about the dangers, shortcomings, and frustration with present day health information technology solutions. There is consensus that although today's systems may support the billing needs of insurance companies, they do not support the analytical needs of physicians. Furthermore, today's systems are fragmented, designed to mimic old paper workflows, designed without much attention to usability and safety, provide little support for evidence-based medicine computer decision support, and distract physicians from the practice of medicine -- in other words, they generally fail to support patient care.
Examples:
http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?RecordID=12572
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/pittsburgh/s_613831.html
http://www.ihealthbeat.org/Features/2009/When-It-Comes-to-Health-Care-IT-What-Works.aspx
"I decided to test the two best known programs, Google Health and Microsoft's HealthVault"
After this statement, the entire article focused on Google Health -- what about the HealthVault evaluation?
"Today I'll focus on Google, and Friday on Microsoft."
Just fyi, and I think un-manage there are a lot of risk with the technology, but there are countless benefits as well. Regardless of a person having all the information collected on them, having a standard so that if you have to go to the emergency room they'd be able to get access to all of your data at a single spot, rather then some doctors using paper or using different codes, like spoken of in the article. I imagine the statistics could be quite useful as well, being able to track a flu epidemic, or something of the sorts, or just the raw medical data that could be obtained. It's definitely a slippery slope, but in this day and age, you'd have to be lottery lucky to find new technology that can't be abused.
Any database is only as good as the amount of data that is in it, so it is not too surprising that the current systems have limited capability/usage. But, the statistical benefits to a large database of health information are enormous. Consider, for example, the advantage of knowing what kind of side-effects are being experienced by users that are taking multiple drugs for similar conditions. Performing a scientific study would be impractical and expensive but real-world usage could provide insights into benefits and hazards that might otherwise go unnoticed for years.
In addition, it might allow patients to know how other people with a similar condition are being treated. Someone with diabetes, could see that x % of patients use Actos w/ insulin, while no one is taking Januvia, Actos w/out insulin. It gives the user the power to understand what the standard practice is and ask his/her doctor more questions about the effectiveness of their treatment.
But, all of this requires a massive database where there are enough patients to get statistics. For now, local benefits to diabetics might be limited to personal control -- knowing how much insulin they have taken, their current and past glucose control, weight, etc. Other benefits come down the road...
Agreeing with "biggerIssues", in my case, I don't want that companies such as google and microsoft have total access my clinic history. http://twitter.com/ESS_BILBAO
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biggerIssues
4 Comments
On-Line Records
Does any one really want this type of information in anyone's cloud? Being the cynic I am, I wonder what data Google will glean from this type of information. I feel much more comfortable having a good relationship with my physician.
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