Google Health

I don't give an F about gmail's ads or custom search whatevses, and I thought people way overreacted to those. But I don't like the idea of this. I've got a lot of sensitive stuff on my medical record, as I'm sure many do. I just hope they keep the 'opt-in' part of it really, really solid.

pfft. if your medical record is already being stowed on some healthcare provider's computer system, it's no more secure now from anyone acting in bad faith than it would be in one of google's data centers.

^^^not true

They're all on paper bcz my city likes using the technology available in 1978.

and as before GOOG's main fault in this initiative is being out in front; how many people who complained about "google reading your e-mail" then went and signed up for myspace and facebook a couple of years later?

See, that never bothered me.

I just don't want the world knowing about my severe phimosis!

US President James Garfield was assassinated by Charles Guiteau in 1881. The autopsy report for Guiteau indicated that he had phimosis. At the time, this led to the simplistic speculation that Guiteau's murderous behavior was due to phimosis-induced insanity.

that speculation is somewhat simplistic, i have to agree

So am I!

Wait, lols. Wait. Uh. Wait.

No Jordan being that I work in the center that processes the reports every time, say, a veteran's hospital fucks up and loses 50,000 patient SSNs along with their x-ray results, I would say that it is a fact.

abbott basically proves my point for me

Whereas I've confused myself most sore.

well don't keep tugging at it then

This confusion is particularly pronounced in regard to infants.

Well, most erosions of civil liberties are requested not imposed

That said...googles web history type stuff is insidious as they are more successful at the idea of being omnipresent, always open, whereas facebook still is something more that people go 'to' (though they too are trying to change this).

Myspace seems like something from a distant past where people didn't put up accurate and real information about themselves

I'm not sure at what point peoples' google web history will become available to others to read but employers might well be interested in that

i do this for a living too, tom. that won't happen with a halfway decent system.

They're all on paper bcz my city likes using the technology available in 1978.

possibly even worse from a bad-faith perspective. nobody keeps access logs on a xerox machine. but it's ok because you can trust the people in your city, right?

i do this for a living too, tom. that won't happen with a halfway decent system.

which google, of course, does not have? but hospitals all do?

no, but many hospitals do. and google is not making software for hospitals, this is something very different.

possibly even worse from a bad-faith perspective. nobody keeps access logs on a xerox machine. but it's ok because you can trust the people in your city, right?

I don't trust a single sumbitch in this town.

Okay, I guess I'll find something non-paranoid to fret about.

this is just a personal health record that the patient can edit and take with them to the hospital or clinic.

that's actually my main misgiving, not that "omg google knows about your health stuff", but that you can edit your own record ("what information is shared with doctors, clinics or pharmacies is controlled by the individual").

obv. it's in your best interest not to keep relevant data from your health care provider, but who knows what motivations people might have to do this (or they might be inaccurate when adding things to their own record, etc.).

ok Jordan that I can kind of get behind, but don't the trained professionals fudge shit and screw up themselves?

I guess the issue is that no physician or pharmacist is necessarily going to be able to trust a google health record.

This guy might have a good point abt its benefits? I guess if you just use it for a day planner abt what meds you are/were on and when, when yr last period was, etc...

Haha Tombot and there you completely counter this guy's thesis:

And, like it or not, doctors don't always believe patients about stuff. Especially mentally ill patients. You need proof that something happened to you, otherwise you stand a very good chance of getting the same damn medication that didn't do you any damn good if you happen to switch doctors and your records haven't caught up with you.

of course they still make mistakes, but in a good integrated system there are a lot more fail-safes (auditing, history, med-checking, etc.).

im sure this will almost immediately morph into the universal medical records system everyone agrees we need to cut costs and improve care

this is just one piece, though. when people talk about cutting costs and improving care they're also talking about practice management systems.

I just wanted to say that until just now I did not know about phimosis. Always learning new things.