Personalized Health Records

June 24, 2007

At DIA, someone from Aetna talked about CareEngine, a proprietary system for personalized health records (PHRs). I am sure just the thought of an insurance company having a system with access to genetic records and recommending action is enough to worry the hell out of many people, but for a second, lets try and avoid that aspect.

Essentially what CareEngine does is take all your medical information, including genetic information and provide you a list of gaps in your healthcare, e.g. tests you should be taking because you show a pre-disposition to some condition, etc. How should such a system be implemented? Now that our second is over, I am not sure I am comfortable with a third party payer having access to all these medical records and recommending treatments. A system independent of healthcare providers and payers would be so much better, with the ability for the owner, i.e. you and I, to be able to provide the information as required, to whom we might want to do so. Would that be the kind of system 23andMe is looking at developing? Google? Microsoft? Of course, once again we need to worry about the ever growing gap between the haves and have nots. We will have access to PHRs, etc, but what about the millions of people in third world countries that do not have access to the kind of information and healthcare that we have.

Further reading:
Google: The healthcare watch continues
Googley bio
Microsoft, Google, and healthcare

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