Today's New York Times has an article about
Google and Microsoft and their planned move into the health care arena.
And no, they're not going to do this by paying for our doctor visits. Their approach is really all about empowering us to take more control over our own health. They'll do this with a combination of better search tools (like my own
Diabetes Search Engine that's built with Google technology) and enabling us to maintain personal health records (PHR).
Now Electronic Health Records (EHR) or Medical records (EMR) are nothing new. There are several versions of these around provided by different companies. I believe the question will be whether Microsoft and Google can work together to develop a standard for PHRs. That would be a trick worth watching.
Right now the Google version has only been shown to a small number of people. The Google Blogoscoped site has
shots of some of the screens from the Google system.
From the NYT article is sounds like Google is trying to do the 'right thing'
At Google, we feel patients should be in charge of their health information, and they should be able to grant their health care providers, family members, or whomever they choose, access to this information. Google Health was developed to meet this need.
I'm just wondering when they actually start working with real patients as they evolve this system.
Watch this space for more details.
Labels: Google, healthcare, microsoft, PHR, search
I'm saying this because
Google makes most of its money from advertising.
I first noticed Google's interest in health-related issues when I blogged about
Adam Bosworth's keynote speech at the AMIA congress. And more recently, Google listed the members of their
health advisory council. I guess I had my head in the sand, because Google has been looking at the health industry for some time now.
So how can I tell that Google is getting
serious about the health industry? Because as of mid-June Google has a
Health Advertising Blog.
I figure anytime Google gets interested in a new area, it's worth watching them. So I'll be watching that blog in the future.
Labels: Google, health
Google seems to be getting serious about health issues.
I've already posted about Adam Bosworth's
presentation at the AMIA conference. Today Google named the 20 members of the
Google Health Advisory Council.
For the most part, this is a diverse group of people. But I see someone from a cancer foundation and from the Lance Armstrong foundation. Unfortunately there's
no-one on the list with a focus on diabetes.
Diabetes is
estimated to consume about 1.3% of the total US GDP. That's more than
all of agriculture contributes to the gross domestic product for the year.
I think curing diabetes should be one of our nation's top healthcare priorities. But then I'm biased.
Labels: diabetes, Google, health
Bad data day
I know you're going to think that I've lost my mind. Because what I'm complaining about may not seem that important to you. But it is probably a lot more important than you think. So bear with me.
On Tuesday, I went for an eye doctor appointment to see what was going on with my right eye. I've had some blurriness in the central part of my vision for a while. So the doctor decided to take some pictures while injecting a fluorescent dye into me. That way if there are any issues, they'll show up clearly in the camera.
Now being a geek, I thought this was way cool. I asked the man doing the pictures whether I could get copies of them. I figured the kids would be interested in them, and I might post one to the
Diabetes Made Visible photo group on Flickr.
Well he mentioned that I'd need to fill out some paperwork and then he could print me some copies. But I didn't want paper copies. I wanted the high resolution photos that I saw on the screen in front of me. So I said, "well I just want to take them home on a Flash drive". His
immediate response is "no, you can't take the files".
Now it's not like I'm removing them. I only want a copy. When I pushed him on this, he said they're "scared what you might do with them". Now can you think of something terrible I might do? Print big posters and e-mail to folks causing heart failure? What's possible bad thing could I do with close up pictures of the back of my eyes?
So that's bad data day item #1. Oh, and by the way, there's no significant damage to my eye. So we're just going to keep watch on it (pun intended).
After I got home, I spent some time talking with someone in
Dexcom. I'm trying to get one of the new
Dexcom SEVEN systems with software, so I can review it.
The response is that right now they're trying to get training ready for the systems. So there are none available for review.
While I was talking with this woman, I asked why Dexcom is making it so hard for us to
get to our data. Her response is that it's due to FDA restrictions.
This is bad data item #2.
I'm checking now to see if the FDA remark is actually true. I can't find anything in various advisory committee transcripts about this. I've fired off notes to some contacts within the FDA. I'll let you know what I find out.
Did you read my post about
Google and health issues? Now how can we get access to our data if you have 'the' diabetes hospital (Joslin Clinic) saying "you can't have your files". And if the FDA or a device maker is saying "you can't have your data".
I'm just
steamed about this!!
How can we improve things with a shrinking supply of endocrinologists, and without access to the facts we need to improve our control?
Grrr!!
Update: I currently use four pieces of diabetes-related software.
All of them have the data locked down in some way.
- Dexcom: Data encrypted or in binary form (unable to crack -- so far)
- OneTouch: Data password protected (easy to crack)
- MiniMed: Data password protected (easy to crack)
- AgaMatrix: Data password protected (easy to crack)
So I think this is a widespread practice. But I can't figure out
why.
Labels: data, Dexcom, diabetes, FDA, Google, healthcare, regulations
Adam Bosworth gave a speech at the 2007 American Medical Association of Informatics (AMIA) Congress.
In the speech he talked about three 'core principles' for future healthcare systems:
- Discovery: we should be able find information that we care about
- Action: We should have access to personalized services so we can get the excellent health support
- Community: We should be able to form a community with those who have similar conditions and from their health practitioners.
His
blog post provides the notes from the speech. When I read these, this comment early in the speech struck a note with me:
This vision for the future of health care starts with the premise that consumers should own their own total personal health and wellness data ... and that only consumers, not insurers, not government, not employers, and not even doctors, but only consumers, should have complete control over how it is used. [My emphasis]
As you may already know, I've tried to do a number of things so that I can get access to my data. Despite repeated attempts,
Dexcom still does not let me get to the data behind their pretty graphs. And I can't export it to another program.
And for the other diabetes devices, I can see the results as the software maker intends, but I can't export it. The
OneTouch software locks the database with a password, as does the
AgaMatrix Zero-Click software. OneTouch does have an export facility, but it's the only one of four software packages I've tried that does this.
If I can't take my data out of their system, I can't combine it and manipulate it. I can't easily share it with my healthcare team. It's unusable except within the software package. It's basically trapped there.
Remember Adam Bosworth saw ownership of my data as the premise, or assumption, on which his vision is based. If I can't access it easily, I don't own it.
As a software architect I understand the importance of raw data. You can't build a software system unless you have data that can be shared by all the pieces. This is the main reason for my
paper promising data format for blood glucose meters, and my creation of the
Diabetes Data wiki.
If you'd like to get involved and help me, I'd love to hear from you.
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Labels: diabetes, Google, software, standards
