Observations from the HIMSS e-Health SIG Panel Discussion on Health 2.0

At HIMSS, I had the opportunity to co-host a panel discussion on Health 2.0 as a co-chair of the e-Health Special Interest Group. We were blessed with an incredible panel:

• Khaled Hassounah, MedHelp (http://www.medhelp.org/)
• Matthew Holt, (http://www.health2con.com/) and (http://www.thehealthcareblog.com/)
• Julie Murchinson, (http://www.health2accelerator.org) and
• Jane Sarasohn-Kahn, THINK-Health (http://www.think-health.com/)

And an incredible group of attendees, leading to some truly fascinating discussion. What follows is a short summary of what I heard in that discussion.

PHR Webinar Hosted By The HIMSS eHealth SIG

By Ben Dillon, Vice President & eHealth Evangelist

I recently had the pleasure of seeing a demonstration of Google Health at a meeting that I was attending. Aside from some issues with the demonstration of connecting the account to a PHR at Beth Israel Deaconess (live demos are dangerous!), I was impressed at the progress that Google has made with their platform.

PHRs – Interest but no action

By Ben Dillon, Vice President & eHealth Evangelist

The ideas are almost there…almost. We can just about taste it, but refuse to take a bite.

I’m talking about online Personal Health Records (PHRs). A new report from Manhattan Research quantifies what we’ve suspected – there is a huge gap between interest and adoption.

How big? 90 percent. 63 million people.

Excited about PHRs or just excited about Google?

By Ben Dillon, Vice President & eHealth Evangelist

It seems that the level of chatter about Personal Health Records has really jumped in the last few months with the entrance of Google Health and Microsoft HealthVault into the space.  On the whole, I’m excited about the move, but I am forced to wonder if the excitement is truly about PHRs or if it’s simply an expression of our fascination with all things Google.

Google, PHRs, and Leading by Example

By Ben Dillon, Vice President & Corporate Evangelist

I learned of the public launch of Google Health last week from the blog of John Sharp of Cleveland Clinic.  Google Health appears, for the most part, to be a run of the mill Personal Health Record (PHR) with conditions, allergies, medications and the like.  There is some typical Google flair in the presentation, but also a lot of awkwardness that needs to be addressed in other versions.

Perhaps the most exciting component currently is the connection to Cleveland Clinic’s Epic MyChart portal (and apparently a few others). 

New concerns on PHR security

By Ben Dillon, Vice President & Corporate Evangelist

In an article in the New England Journal of Medicine, two researchers express concerns about the privacy of health information after the entrance of Microsoft and Google into the Personal Health Record space.

The authors apparently hope to begin a dialogue on the implications of private organizations like Microsoft and Google as stewards of such large volumes of patient data.  Fueling these concerns is the lower burdens that they perceive such organizations would carry to protect this information. And, they suggest these organizations would not be required to follow privacy regulations, such as HIPAA.