Google Health versus Microsoft HealthVault

Google Health versus Microsoft HealthVault : "The big competition here is between Google Health and Microsoft’s HealthVault. (Revolution Health is more of an information portal at this point, and who is going to trust their health insurance company?). Whereas HealthVault’s strengths seem to lie in tying together different health information silos on the back end, Google Health is focusing more initially on the consumer side. It is trying to do an end-run around the health establishment by trying to get consumers to manually load their own medical information into their profiles. HealthVault allows this as well, but seems to have stronger partnerships with back-end health data providers. Google will no doubt tackle the existing health data silos as it proceeds. It really has no choice if it wants to organize the world’s health information."

I know many people are going to treat this as a competition, but I think this is very short-sighted. Both these efforts are going to provide consumers with more control over their medical treatment, and this paradigm shift is what is important . Whether they do it by using Microsoft's services or Google's is unimportant in the big picture. The true winners are going to be patients - and those doctors who accept the fact that empowered patients are the best patients !

Google Health

Google Health: " Google Health allows you to store and manage all of your health information in one central place. And it's completely free. All you need to get started is a Google username and password. Google believes that you own your medical records and should have easy access to them. The way we see it, it's your information; why shouldn't you control it?

* Keep your doctors up-to-date
* Stop filling out the same paperwork every time you see a new doctor
* Avoid getting the same lab tests done over and over again because your doctor cannot get copies of your latest results
* Don't lose your medical records because of a move, change in jobs or health insurance

With Google Health, you manage your health information — not your health insurance plan or your employer. You can access your information anywhere, at any time."

Google Health is finally here ! This is great news for patients, as google health offers many clever tools patients can use to get control of their medical treatment.

It's primarily an aggregator service right now, which brings together services from many different providers, to help patients solve their problems.

I especially like the following.

1. An easy to use interface ( which is what one would expect from google ) !
2. Links to services which offer to digitise your personal records, so they can be uploaded to google. I think this is going to be a big breakthrough, as people now have an easy and inexpensive way of storing their information online. Most potential PHR users find this to be a huge problem, and don't know how to input all their old records . For a fee, many service providers ( such as MyMedicalSummary) will do this for you and google provides links to many of them. This allows you to populate your Google Health Profile without having to enter all the data manually - which can be a very tedious exercise !
3. Links to clever services such as MyDailyApple which allow users to use the information stored in their Google Health profile to customise and personalise health searches.

I find it fascinating that many of the new innovations which are coming in healthcare longer seem to be related to new drugs or technology. Many of them now are about how consumers can get more control over their own healthcare - and this is a excellent paradigm. Doctors are going to have to get their acts together to handle this new group of empowered and powerful patients. Empathetic doctors, who put "patients first", will welcome this change, as it will make their job much easier !

Personalized Health News

Personalized Health News: " Personalized health information is our new mantra. Our first innovation in this area was personalized search, which we have been offering for a few months now. When you ask a question of Curbside.MD, you can choose your health profile and the search results you see are aligned to that profile. Here's an example. Dudley Demo is a 50 year old white male. His medical history includes HIV/AIDS, PCP pneumonia, thrush, shingles, and depression. His medications include bactrium, diflucan, combivir, and viracept. When Dudley Demo issues a simple search for 'headache', the results are dramatically influenced by his health profile, giving him extremely specific and relevant information."

MyMedicalSummary

MyMedicalSummary: "Tired of filling out the same forms at your doctor's office? Do you or your family have extensive health records that are scattered in multiple practices? Let MyMedicalSummary take your paper medical records and create your own personal Google Health Record online - where you can view it and update it at your convenience - all of the records or any portion of your records that YOU choose."

Lots of services which are helping patients digitise their own medial records so they can make better use of them !

American College of Physicians urges collaboration on e-health

American College of Physicians urges collaboration on e-health: " Collaboration among physicians, patients, technology developers, and policymakers must occur if e-health activities are to transform healthcare in the United States, says the American College of Physicians in a new position paper it released last week.

'E-health activities have great potential to improve the quality of patient care, reduce medical errors, increase efficiency and access to care, and achieve substantial cost savings,' said David C. Dale, MD, president of ACP."

Why doctors are so poor at communicating with patients - The Curse of Knowledge

Why doctors are so poor at communicating with patients - The Curse of Knowledge : "The Curse of Knowledge is a concept is a book called Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die. The curse of knowledge concept has generated quite a bit of buzz. Here’s an excerpt, which I got from 37 Signals:

People tend to think that having a great idea is enough, and they think the communication part will come naturally. We are in deep denial about the difficulty of getting a thought out of our own heads and into the heads of others. It’s just not true that, “If you think it, it will stick.”

And that brings us to the villain of our book: The Curse of Knowledge. Lots of research in economics and psychology shows that when we know something, it becomes hard for us to imagine not knowing it. As a result, we become lousy communicators. Think of a lawyer who can’t give you a straight, comprehensible answer to a legal question. His vast knowledge and experience renders him unable to fathom how little you know. So when he talks to you, he talks in abstractions that you can’t follow. And we’re all like the lawyer in our own domain of expertise.

Here’s the great cruelty of the Curse of Knowledge: The better we get at generating great ideas—new insights and novel solutions—in our field of expertise, the more unnatural it becomes for us to communicate those ideas clearly. That’s why knowledge is a curse. But notice we said “unnatural,” not “impossible.” Experts just need to devote a little time to applying the basic principles of stickiness.

JFK dodged the Curse [with “put a man on the moon in a decade”]. If he’d been a modern-day politician or CEO, he’d probably have said, “Our mission is to become the international leader in the space industry, using our capacity for technological innovation to build a bridge towards humanity’s future.” That might have set a moon walk back fifteen years."

Doctors are used to talking in medicalese that they find it hard to talk to patients in simple English !

Not in a Million Years | Sean Khozin, MD, MPH

Not in a Million Years | Sean Khozin, MD, MPH: "It saddens me to say that I regret my decision at becoming a doctor. For the first time in 20 years I note this statement to be true. There is a cold storm brewing. For 20 years I’ve never felt this way. I wonder with whom we will fill the need for future physicians. Plan not to have the kind of understanding and sympathy and empathy that you have felt in years past. Plan ahead for a very impersonal and rushed visit during which time the true nature of your problems will probably never be addressed and issues just under the surface will never be explored."

The Health Care Blog: Wishing for a smart health search

The Health Care Blog: Wishing for a smart health search: "There is definitely a lot of hope for technology to help consumers in the health-search space.

Here's my wish list for a Smart Search Engine:

Remember who I am.

1. Filter the information that is relevant to me.
2. Correct me if my question does not make sense.
3. Suggest me “You could be also interested in …” material.
4. Alert me if my clicks and pages have semantically deviated from what I’m searching for and let me get back to the starting point.
5. Remember what I already read.
6. Learn my social interactions with others, and deliver me the wisdom of others, especially if others are qualified or really “close” to me and my medical problems."

If the search engine was built around your PHR, all these wishes would be met !

Just like your family physician filters through all the information which he has in his head, so he can select what applies to you, an intelligent search engine can perform the same function intelligently. You can provide feedback to improve the quality of the " finds."

Rate your doctor (why we wrote the story) : Booster Shots : Los Angeles Times

Rate your doctor (why we wrote the story) : Booster Shots : Los Angeles Times: "What she found was a public hungry for more complete information about the men and women to whom they entrust their lives. Americans don't apparently believe that medical boards, insurance companies or doctors themselves will tell the truth. And so they've turned to each other.

'What surprised me once I got into reporting the story was how emotional many of the comments are,' Roan says. 'People are really angry, and my sense is that it reflects the state of healthcare in general.'

We understand the pros and cons of this trend -- as, we're sure, do readers. The online world is a risky one, reputation-wise and in terms of accuracy. But patients want -- and need -- as much information as they can get when stepping blindly into the healthcare abyss. They also deserve accurate information.

Like it or not, ratings of everyone are likely here to stay. For them to be truly useful, however, our story suggests that more people -- not fewer people -- need to weigh in. Not just with the bad -- but with the good."

HealthCareSoundOff.com

HealthCareSoundOff.com: "I have diabetes and high blood pressure and often need advice from my physician. Each time I need advice I am forced to make an appointment and go to the doctor’s office. Most of the time his advice is routine or I need some adjustment to my medications. Is there a way for me to avoid making the appointment and getting advice on line or on the phone.

Many doctors will now “see you” online through the internet. According to Wall Street Journal web sites are now available to doctors that take a history that allows your doctor to decide if he can treat you without a visit. Doctors that use this software charge a fee of approximately $30 to process your request for advice. Ask you doctor about adopting this process. Remember, most health insurance does not cover online virtual visits so you will be paying for this service out of pocket."

Health Beat: Why We Don’t Need More Doctors

Health Beat: Why We Don’t Need More Doctors: "Patient outcomes are not better in regions with a very large supply of physicians.”

Meanwhile, Fisher and Goodman observe, while an embarrassment of physicians doesn’t mean higher quality care, “having more physicians does, however, mean more spending on health care — a strong correlation that should not be surprising. Physicians' incomes are an important component of medical spending, and physicians order most clinical services.” That last point is important, and reminds me of this chestnut: “Can you name the most expensive piece of equipment in a hospital?” The answer: “a doctor’s pen.”

This is not to say that doctors intentionally over-prescribe medications, tests or procedures. It is just that when there are more of them in a community they have more time to see their patients more often, to consult on other doctors’ patients in the hospital—and to do more to them. “That’s just what doctors do,” Fisher, one of the authors of this article once told me: “We keep busy.”

Fisher and Goodman then tick off three reasons why we should not try to expand the physician workforce"

Blog - Like A Doctor In The Family

Blog - Like A Doctor In The Family: "Health Defense© is a philosophy and a practice. It is to surviving healthcare as defensive driving is to surviving driving in an automobile. In all future postings by me, and hopefully by you, we will explore the importance of this philosophy and its application to surviving our healthcare.

We all want quality healthcare, that is healthcare that is correct, transparent, appropriate, efficient, and compassionate. If we are ill, we want a cure for our illness. If we are well, we want to preserve our wellness. How do we get that? We’ll it's not there for the taking, we need to extract it. Thinking it is just sitting there contributes to what I call the Wall of Apathy, the single biggest barrier to accessing good healthcare and preserving wellness.

We all need to become owners of our health, much as we own other things of value. Right now many have relinquished their health to all those providers who presume to want it and assert their right to it, that is the healthcare establishment. It’s time to take ownership. As for the Wall of Apathy, it’s time to “tear down that wall” ."

Online health sites | Salon Life

Online health sites | Salon Life: "The medical establishment, in fact, has taken way too much time to understand that the Internet is a disruptive innovation that has overturned the status quo. It has leveled the playing field between expert and novice -- in this case, doctor and patient. While some doctors like Haig may find that challenge threatening to their status as an expert, the Web is now providing the kind of information doctors need to be aware of if we want to continue to be good at our job, and the kind of trends that can help patients be smarter and healthier."

e-patients: The Plausible Promise of Participatory Medicine

e-patients: The Plausible Promise of Participatory Medicine: "Participatory medicine is what Eric Raymond calls a “plausible promise”: something big enough to inspire interest yet achievable enough to inspire confidence.

Reforming health care is too big for most people to grasp; creating spaces for participatory medicine is not. E-patients are already finding, sharing, and mashing up health information online. If you want to take advantage of the internet’s capabilities, find ways to make it easier for people to find and share information that you and your organization hold."

Health Management Rx

Health Management Rx: "If we use web-evolutionary terms to define the current position, then we can predict where Health 2.0, consumer-centric care - enabled by HIT but also ‘brick and mortar’ integration of wellness tech- will go…

*Health 1.0 (1C) = content

*Health 2.0 (2Cs) = content + community

*Health 3.0 (3Cs) = content + community + commerce (transactions that create value for both company and consumer)

*Health 4.0 (4Cs) = content + community + commerce + what we’re currently missing - coherence"

Musings of a Medical Dinosaur

Musings of a Medical Dinosaur: " * First Law: The Art of Medicine consists of amusing the patient while nature takes its course.
* Second Law: It is impossible to make an asymptomatic patient feel better.
* Third Law: The urgency of the test is inversely proportional to the IQ of the insurance company preauthorization clerk.
* Fourth Law: There is no cure for stupid.
* Fifth Law: A patient's acceptance of a screening test is inversely proportional to its necessity for that particular patient.
* Sixth Law: Trauma survival is inversely related to the patient's value to society.
* Seventh Law: Fertility is inversely proportional to intelligence.
* Eighth Law: The better the surgeon, the more reluctant s/he is to operate.
* Ninth Law:
Part A: It has to be fun.
Part B: If it isn't fun, see Part A.
* Tenth Law: 'Simple' and 'Easy' are not necessarily the same.
* Eleventh Law: Poor planning on your part is not an emergency on my part.
* Twelfth Law: A bad idea held by many people for a long time is still a bad idea."

Concierge Medicine For the Masses

Concierge Medicine For the Masses " Dr. Alan Dappen is available to his patients 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, by phone, email and in person. Visits may be scheduled on the same day if needed, prescriptions may be refilled any time without an office visit, he makes house calls, and all records are kept private and digital on a hard drive in his office.

How much would it cost to have the luxury of a personal physician on-call for your every whim?

Would you believe only about $300/year?

What's Dr. Dappen's secret to success? He accepts no insurance, keeps his overhead low, offers full price transparency, has physician extenders who work with him, and charges people for his time, not for a complex menu of tests and procedures.

'I believe in doing what is necessary and not doing what is not necessary. The healthcare system is broken because it has perverse incentives, complicated reimbursement strategies, and cuts the patient out of the billing process. When patients don't care what something costs, and believe that everything should be free, doctors will charge as much as they can. "

Improving Patient Outcomes

Improving Patient Outcomes: "Physicians’ Records has designed a comprehensive service for the patient as well as physicians. The one tool that can provide a real difference for patients needing not only emergency healthcare, but also in their everyday follow-up care with Primary Care Providers and specialists.

Our Registered Nurses provide direct support for patients that encompass archival and secure access to healthcare information, so they can be an integral participant in their healthcare outcome. The most important information that physicians in both emergent and non-emergent settings need to make decisions about patients is the ACTUAL records that are created throughout the care continuum.

Summaries and patient-provided information, although helpful, in most cases does not provide the details about a patients prior healthcare documentation.

Providing real-time, secure access to your actual records decreases your doctor’s need to guess. Because the healthcare industry has been anemic in its adoption of a universal health information portal, Physicians’ Records provides the one asset that bridges the gap between hospitals, physicians and everyone in between. We provide navigational tools that are designed with the patient and the clinical professional in mind."

Consumer-focused healthcare: Interview with Evan Falchuk of Best Doctors: Giving consumers the opportunity to double check diagnosis and treatment dec

Consumer-focused healthcare: Interview with Evan Falchuk of Best Doctors: Giving consumers the opportunity to double check diagnosis and treatment decisions: "Well, first thing for a consumer is to make sure you’ve got that right diagnosis and treatment. Don’t assume, no matter how good your doctor is, and there are a lot of great doctors out there that you’ve got the right answer. So if you have a benefit like Best Doctors, call and ask for help. If not, perhaps you want to ask your employer, do we have this program? But ask questions. Become an informed patient, and make decisions based on the best information you can.

VG: Right, so this kind of reinforces the point and it’s been a continuing theme—many doctors need to do things quickly and they’re forced by the current reimbursement model to do things quickly, and so having somebody else kind of look it over with a clear head and make sure that it all makes sense, is never a bad thing.

EF: Doctors tell me all the time that I spend 5-6 minutes with my patients. So think of a patient whose got an illness, whose been seen by their primary care doctor for 7 minutes, and seen by specialists for 7 minutes, and a third doctor for 7 minutes—the opportunity for stuff to go wrong is enormous."

Consumer-focused healthcare

Consumer-focused healthcare: "An interesting statistic is that about 75% of people will have a symptom of a health problem or a health problem within a 30-day period. And it’s also true that about 8 out of 10 of those people don’t ever enter the health care system. They figure out that they’ve got a cold and they’re just going to drink a lot of fluids and get better. Or that their child does not really have an ear infection—they make these decisions—this cut does not need stitches, and all those kinds of things. And so people already do a bunch of this stuff, and from a health plan side, there’s no claim, there’s no nothing, so people already manage their health and make health decisions everyday that are totally invisible to the health care delivery system. We don’t see them."

Patient Records Need Reviews - WSJ.com

Patient Records Need Reviews - WSJ.com: "With health-care costs rising fast and insurers more closely scrutinizing potential clients, consumers need to pay closer attention to what is in their medical records.

Not only can incorrect medical information lead to ineffective or harmful treatment -- the Institute of Medicine estimates that as many as 98,000 patients die each year in hospitals from medical errors -- it can also affect your insurability.

'You need to make sure you know what's in your medical records and correct any errors before you apply for insurance,' says Carolyn McClanahan, a certified financial planner in Jacksonville, Fla., and a former medical doctor.

Savvy consumers know to check their credit score before applying for a loan. What is less well known is that consumers can improve their chances of getting insured -- and of paying lower premiums -- by checking that medical information held by doctors, hospitals and pharmacies is accurate.

Errors in medical records aren't uncommon. 'They happen all the time,' says Joy Pritts, research associate professor at Georgetown University's Health Policy Institute."

Another Reason Patients Should Review Their Health Records

Another Reason Patients Should Review Their Health Records: "This is another reason for routinely reviewing your health records. In an era of covert rationing, you can protect yourself by not exposing your doctors to the ever-present temptation to “spin” the records. (Some doctors are regular DJs.) If your doctor knows you are going to read whatever he puts down, he’s a lot less likely to color the story to your disadvantage.

Indeed, for this very reason, DrRich would be especially suspicious of doctors who refuse to give you copies of your own health records."

Why Americans Are Going Abroad for Health Care

Why Americans Are Going Abroad for Health Care: "For someone such as Toral, the hypertrophied medical-industrial complex is just begging for a dose of disruptive innovation. He calls his vision the 'Toyota-ization of health care,' a metaphor so vast that it contains multiple readings, some fit for industry conferences and others he'll cop to only in confidence. In Toral's view, medical tourism as we know it is already giving way to 'globalized health care.' Hospital chains at home will buy, partner with, or even sell out to foreign rivals like Bumrungrad, creating worldwide networks of patients who will hopscotch across continents chasing the best care and costs. Insurers will leap at the chance to lower their own bills and offer members more options. And employers, dying to do the same, will induce employees to play ball by kicking back a share of the savings."

medinnovationblog: 25 Things I've Leaned about the Physician Culture

medinnovationblog: 25 Things I've Leaned about the Physician Culture: "25 Things I've Leaned about the Physician Culture .

1. People become doctors to serve patients, not hospitals or business corporations.

2. Patients are not “customers,” they’re individuals who need your help, even when that help may be expensive and experimental.

3. Physicians are “the patient’s advocate,” a protector and guide through a world fraught with obstacles to care.

4. Filling outforms frustrates doctors because paperwork takes time away from seeing patients: some doctors take hospital jobs because they can practice medicine rather than processing paper."

Could that symptom be from your meds?

Could that symptom be from your meds? : "4,000 Americans Die From Adverse Drug Effects Every Week . Protect Yourself and Your Loved Ones. Ask the First Question First: Could that symptom be from your meds? PharmaSURVEYOR is the fast online way to find out!

Simply enter your current medications and review the risks. Search for your symptoms to see how your medications may be contributing to them. PharmaSURVEYOR identifies the compound risks associated with additive toxicities in addition to drug interactions, providing more complete risk assessment across your entire drug regimen."

The Trillion Dollar Challenge

The Trillion Dollar Challenge: "My MD and Me spokesman said, 'If the patient does not pay the doctor a barrier is placed between them and costs are inflated. Think about it like a grocery store. You get coupons, great service. You know who offers the best value by shopping around, word of mouth from friends and reputations in the community. This changes if the customer stops paying the bill. What is the incentive to know the cost if you do not pay the bill? What is the stores' incentive to give good service? How does the consumer know who offers the best value?' he continued, 'Service naturally declines because the ?customer' is not the person getting the milk, but the person paying for it. The costs naturally increase through artificial inflation. The only way this stops is to putting the customer in charge of the dollars being spent.'"

Successful Medical Practise Management

| View | Upload your own

How Information Therapy can heal a sick healthcare system

| View | Upload your own

Information Therapy and the Empowered Patient

| View | Upload your own

Indian healthcare success story - Emergency Management and Research Institute

Indian healthcare success story - Emergency Management and Research Institute: "EMRI (Emergency Management and Research Institute) is a pioneer in Emergency Management Services in India. It is a not - for - profit professional organization founded, funded and nurtured by Mr.B.Ramalinga Raju, founder and Chairman, Satyam Computers and his brothers. Operating in the Private Public Patrnership (PPP) mode, EMRI is the only professional Emergency Service Provider in India today.

EMRI handles medical, police and fire emergencies through the ' 108 Emergency service'. This is a free service delivered through state- of -art emergency call response centres and over 610 ambulances accross Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat. With the expansion of fleet and services set to spread accross more states in 2008, EMRI will have more than 2000 ambulances covering a population in excess of 200 million by July 2008."

This is one of India's great healthcare success stories ! They provide emergency medical care which is as good as the US 911 care - at one tenth of the cost ! This is a great example of using a clever mix of managerial skills; advanced technology; entrepreneurship and public-private partnership to provide high quality medical care. It's a very inspiring story - and is full of lessons we can all learn from.

Nagging via text messages to help teens remember meds

Nagging via text messages to help teens remember meds: "4gt yr meds? Getting kids to remember their medicine may be a text message away. Cincinnati doctors are experimenting with texting to tackle a big problem: Tweens and teens too often do a lousy job of controlling chronic illnesses like asthma, diabetes or kidney disease.

It's a problem long recognized in adults, particularly for illnesses that can simmer without obvious symptoms until it's too late. But only now are doctors realizing how tricky a time adolescence is for skipping meds, too.

Of necessity, parents start turning over more health responsibilities to their children at this age. It's also an age of angst, sometimes rebellion, and when youths may most hate feeling different from their friends because of medication, special diets or other therapy."

Suture for a Living: Words to Live By

Suture for a Living: Words to Live By: "'Although we may remember David Cheever as a surgical innovator, his character is more aptly revealed in the following passage from a lecture, delivered before the Harvard Medical School class of 1871, entitled “How to Study Medicine”:

If you seek for wealth you have mistaken your avocation. There must be something more, and something higher. That something is a love of your profession; a passion for science for its own sake; a broad humanity, which covers all the sick with a mantle of charity. Never lose sight of that motive, for if it once takes flight, your profession is reduced to a trade, and there is absolutely nothing left. As long as you can keep alive the sacred flame of this early passion which first called you to embrace the medical
profession, so long shall you be warmed, sustained, upheld amid disappointment, unjust treatment or reverses.'"

Baltimore Health Examiner - Medical Information: tainted or pure? - Examiner.com

Baltimore Health Examiner - Medical Information: tainted or pure? - Examiner.com: "Here’s a secret: the medical information that you hear, whether on the radio, on TV or straight from your doctor’s mouth, may not be as pure as you think. You might imagine that those medical experts on the morning news or big-shot specialists at Johns Hopkins are simply sharing straight-up facts. Think again.

As much as we, physicians, like to imagine that we are unbiased, there are many forces influencing us. Drug companies dangling generous consulting fees, the desire to please media sponsors, and the need to recruit patients for our research studies just to name a few."

Being an IVF specialist helps me to be a patient advocate !

Free ebook - How to Have a Baby - free download

You can now download the book ( both as a pdf file and as an ebook) free at http://drop.io/howtohaveababy.