Well, we have argued that the web would in the end begin to be the real solution for the medical data conundrum.  The vast array of EMR systems replete with their selective operating systems, lack of integration and HIPPA requirements made inter connectivity in health care all but impossible on a grand scale. If we can deal with the issues related to HIPPA (that health insurers and the goverment can still share info to deny you coverage etc.) then this becomes much more feasible and the true HIPPA issues of personal privacy can be maintianed.  The elemination of pre-existing conditions as a means to exclude persons for coverage, the elimination of ability to deny renewal due to illness, surgery or other “users’ of insurance dollars and the mandate of personal responsiblity for health care coverage can be linked to this type of new technolgy with rapid implementation and widespread acceptance.  These issues are linked.  REAL HEALTH REFORM requires an intellectual vision of what personal health choice is all about and an understanding of the leverage points at work within the system . . . obi jo

Google, IBM unveil online health monitoring tool

Forbes reported that on Thursday, Google and IBM are expected to “unveil a new initiative that will allow Google Health, a site where users can store and track information about their medical history, to connect to and stream data from medical devices.” The service will enable “gadgets like heart rate monitors, blood pressure cuffs, scales, and blood-sugar management meters” to communicate “with a PC and feed real-time medical information directly into Google’s online records.” These connections “will offer a new immediacy and granularity of health monitoring,” IBM noted. Through “its partnership with Google,” IBM aims “to prove it has the software and hardware necessary to organize and store millions of private records securely.” Still, some “activists have called Google health a threat to users’ personal information.” For its part, “Google insists that it doesn’t use or plan to use Google Health information for advertising purposes.” Meanwhile, IBM plans “to show that digital healthcare can work on a wider scale.”

read more @ http://www.forbes.com/2009/02/04/google-ibm-healthcare-technology-internet_0205_google.html