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June 26, 2008

Late yesterday, Google and Microsoft have agreed to industry standards intended to speed the adoption of personal electronic health records, both in hospitals as well as in private clinics.

But if you need to know, overall, the electronic medical record segment remains in its early infancy.

While strict privacy laws in the US govern actions by medical providers like doctors and nurses, there is little in the way of other established privacy, security and data usage standards despite decades of industry effort and Congress trying to enact tougher laws.

Industry proponents, which also include some doctors, a few nurses and various employer groups, said they hope to break a stalemate in moving medical records online, sparked by consumer fears that their personal information will be abused, shared, sold, or worse, held against them for all kinds of reasons.

Basic principles for personal health records include an audit trail to track specific and accurate use of the data in the first place, a dispute resolution process for consumers who believe their personal information has been misappropriated, and an outright ban on using data to discriminate in employment.

James Dempsey, deputy director at the Center for Democracy and Technology says "a policy and privacy logjam has constricted some of the consumer uptake of these services."

Experts lament the very fragmented nature of the health care system anyway, where most if not all doctors still use paper records, and where most patients simply don't have access to their own personal health information.

On June 3rd, Microsoft announced that Kaiser Permanente, the biggest U.S. health maintenance organization, will use the Microsoft HealthVault(tm) platform to link Kaiser employees who volunteer to have their records transferred to other medical institutions.

Also signing on to the principles are Web MD, Consumers Union, AARP and America's Health Insurance Plans, which represents major insurers such as Aetna and a few others.

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Source: Google.