This week’s Google announcement of a secure online portal they are piloting that will allow consumers to save their personal medical records and allow Internet access to anyone they authorize, has sparked a growing privacy (or the lack of) concern.

The whole idea of the portals is to give more control of health-related information to patients and also to (hopefully) lower overall health care costs. But, while many consumers may feel their personal records placed on the portal are federally protected by HIPAA, in reality their privacy may end up compromised.

HIPAA only provides protection in three types of institutions: medical care providers such as hospitals and physicians, health insurance companies, and medical records clearing houses. If a consumer pulls their medical records and gives them to a non-HIPAA covered entity or person, they lose their HIPAA privacy protections.

Google is partnering with The Cleveland Clinic to pilot the program where up to 10,000 patients may voluntarily share their medical information such as prescriptions, conditions and allergies between the clinic and an online Google profile. Last October, Microsoft announced its HealthVault, a similar service.

Google is taking the more appropriate course of conducting a significant pilot program to test whether personal health record portals do what they are intended to do. This should iron out many of the privacy concerns. Microsoft, while enjoying first-to-market success, has released HealthVault to the early adopter market and may have to address privacy by trial and error that could leave subscribers open to privacy vulnerabilities.

Wall Street Journal, Google Blog, Reuters, SC Magazine, Associated Press, MedHeadlines, MediConnect Blog, MediConnect Global

This entry was posted on Friday, February 22nd, 2008 at 5:00 pm and is filed under Personal Health Records. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.