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Archive for the ‘Personalized Medicine’ Category

Google’s Personal Health Record Platform

• Posted May 20th 2008
• Comments (2)
• by Janice

 The long-awaited release of Google Health (in Beta of course) makes it clear that there is a race on between Google and Microsoft to gain traction and share in the emerging market for personal health records (PHRs). 

At Health Content Advisors, we have shifted our view of the relevancy of PHRs to publishers of health content.  Previously, we tended to think that electronic health records were an IT utility for record-keeping and that they would take time to be adopted by a significant portion of consumers.  Yes, publishers should be cognizant of the need to integrate their content with electronic medical records and PHRs, but more timely opportunities seemed to exist in the creation of standalone applications for researching healthcare information.   We now view PHRs as a logical structure and filtering tool for health-related research and information seeking.  Even if users don’t register and import or input data into secure (one hopes) online sites, the architecture of a personal health record is a sensible one for designing a healthcare information portal. 

Google Health requires that users set up a profile that includes age, sex, height, conditions, medications, test results and more before allowing access to the specialized online health services included in Google Health (health topics from ADAM are the exception).  I for one will not be entering this information exchange bargain with Google, but I know that I guard my privacy more highly than some others.  Google is offering added privacy protection measures and will not allow advertising on Google Health, but it has said that it will aggregate anonymized content from Google Health to create trend data and other statistics that can be monetized via online ads or other means.

When viewed as a content service, Google Health sets the registration bar extremely high: imagine other content sites asking for such personal information before they allowed users to view content.  Not many users would complete the registration process.  However, when viewed as a utility for storing personal health information-and a utility that is promoted by one’s medical provider/institution–the same content becomes a beneficial value-added service.  But, in either case, Google is dependent on a high level of trust from users.  

Google doesn’t think small.  As Erick Schonfeld of TechCrunch says, Google Health is “a platform” and they are striving to be the most popular platform for personal electronic health records.  We applaud Google for establishing a sound foundational architecture for personal health content and for bringing order to the scattered world of online health content. However, we have some issues with the conditions that are set for accessing the content.

(This is the first in a series of posts on GH.  Our next post will focus on content, search and content partners.)

 

The Rise of the New Intermediaries

• Posted April 10th 2008
• Comment (1)
• by Janice

Intermediaries figure prominently in the theme of our Health Content08 conference this year. In essence all publishers are intermediaries. They assemble and distribute information. As a consequence, they build an audience of readers with a common interest in the topics that they cover. And, often, they serve as a market-maker for vendors that want to sell goods and services to that audience. This is especially true in the consumer publishing sector. 

With the avalanche of new health-related information comes an urgent need for publishers to interpret medical jargon for non-professional audiences, and this is giving rise to a whole new class of intermediary, one that functions in a similar fashion as today’s financial advisors function.

One such emerging class of healthcare intermediary is that of genetic counselor. Eye on DNA provides an interview with Elissa Levin, a genetic counselor at Navigenics a personal genomics company that is getting quite a lot of attention. Elissa describes her job as “working with people to help them understand complex information and what it means to them and to their family. This means staying on top of new technologies, research, risk communication strategies, and creating an infrastructure to provide accurate information responsibly”. The interview further explains the role of genetic counselor and how it relates to the burgeoning field of personalized medicine.

The current healthcare system is becoming ever more challenging to navigate. While information technology can be used to help organize data and make it more accessible, IT is also enabling the production of greater and greater amounts of data. Clearly, the role for intermediaries who specialize in understanding health information and can guide users to appropriate resources will be in demand – as advisors, counselors, information specialists/librarians, information architects, journalists, and some titles that haven’t been created yet. Look to meet many of them at Health Content08.