Comments on: Microsoft HealthVault: Empowering People to Lead Healthy Lives?

By: Doug Kretzmann

Doug Kretzmann — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 19:01:49 +0000

Apparently neither Google nor Microsoft has noticed (or perhaps they prefer not to acknowledge) that the technical problem has been comprehensively solved already, by the Veterans Affairs medical system. The remaining problems are not technical but political.

We can talk about ’shoulds’ and ‘translucency’ all we like, in the end the insurance business will find a way to use such a database punitively.

The real question is how to arrive at a health-care system that doesn’t punish the sick. No amount of technology will answer that question.

Also, have you ever tried to extract your own healthcare records from a doctor or hospital ? They don’t let go easily.

The extended version of my grumblings is at
http://dkretzmann.blogspot.com/2007/10/healthcare-nonsense.html

By: simon fellows

simon fellows — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 16:11:27 +0000

Mark was suizzing yr site and saw something about your type A-ness.
You might like this..nowt new but elegantly worded nonetheless.

The individual,then,has power,and yet the nature of that power reflects a kind of irreducible existential predicament. If every individual act may ultimately have great consequences,those consequences are almost entirely unforseeable …

By: 60 in 3

60 in 3 — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 16:05:32 +0000

I’m all for systems like this. I’ve switched health care providers a few times due to the insurance options offered by new jobs and it’s almost impossible to get health records transferred. A central system would be great and I think Microsoft probably knows more about security than the hospital systems do.

Gal

By: klcthebookworm

klcthebookworm — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 13:50:15 +0000

So how do the banks do it? And how did they set it up?

It really irks me to hear people start yacking about compatibility issues and security issues without doing some homework (mostly aimed at journalists and people who want to oppose an idea without trying to sound intelligent about it). I called it old dog syndrome when we were building the new computer system at my job. “They don’t want to think about it because they’ll have to learn new tricks.” :p

I’m sure financial information can be hijacked electronically, but it doesn’t seem to happen as often as it could. Something must be going right.

We have the same legal tender and we the same anatomical features. The paperwork can’t be THAT different. And if it, maybe it’s time to let some efficiency people streamline stuff.

By: Marie

Marie — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 12:34:00 +0000

No way! Way too Big Brother for me. Can you picture the Presidential candidate whose records were hacked into…and it turns out he was treated for herpes when he was in college?
I’m all for individual offices having electronic records…and giving them (on a disc or flash drive perhaps??) to patients who request them…but way would I want a “Health Vault.” And I don’t even have anything to hide..anything embarrassing in my records…THEY’RE JUST PRIVATE!

By: Joe Matasic

Joe Matasic — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 12:08:29 +0000

I think the e-records are a great idea but there will be some major hurdles as you note. The first of these will be a multiple formats. This will either have to be made to work together or combined into one format properly without the loss or misplacement of info the wrong fields where it could be missed and be life or death. The next big issue will be security. I write code for a retailer for a living and can tell you with certainly that encryption is nowhere near foolproof. Providing that criminals (if they had an incentive) didn’t get a hold of the unencrypted data, actually unencrypting it is not really a problem.

Not really sure that there is much of an incentive for criminals who would be able to do that to do it though.

Also, I would think that doctors would need to write more legibly so that less translation mistakes are made.

Joe