Google Gets Health(y)
On Tuesday Google launched Google Health, "your" database for all your health records in (what else) beta form. Personally, I have little interest in spreading more of my personal information around for people / companies to accidentally leak, but I took a look anyway.
Microsoft has a similar project at HealthVault, so this isn't the first such initiative, but that doesn't make it any more palatable to me.
First, I suggest you take a look at the Terms of Service, the first thing you see the first time you log in. In particular, since the word HIPAA has become familiar to me for various reasons, I found this paragraph of note:
4. Use of Your InformationHIPAA, the Health Insurance Portability & Accountability Act of 1996 provides the following:
If you create, transmit, or display health or other information while using Google Health, you may provide only information that you own or have the right to use. When you provide your information through Google Health, you give Google a license to use and distribute it in connection with Google Health and other Google services. However, Google may only use health information you provide as permitted by the Google Health Privacy Policy, your Sharing Authorization, and applicable law. Google is not a "covered entity" under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 and the regulations promulgated thereunder ("HIPAA"). As a result, HIPAA does not apply to the transmission of health information by Google to any third party.
- Standardization of electronic patient health, administrative and financial data
- Unique health identifiers for individuals, employers, health plans and health care providers
- Security standards protecting the confidentiality and integrity of "individually identifiable health information," past, present or future.
I also checked the privacy statement at HealthVault and didn't see any such reference to HIPAA, which may or may not reassure me. I mean, the lack of any information about it may mean a similar stance as Google's.
Of course, in this day and age, privacy is a long-gone idea, isn't it?
Anyway, you can import your records from a variety of providers, including BBeth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Longs Drugs Stores, Walgreens Pharmacy, and more. Aside from those, however, you have to manually enter them yourself - which I ain't gonna do, even if I wanted to.
Someday, something like this may be the only way things are done, but for now, despite assurances, I'd like as few places to have as little information about me as possible.
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Malignant mesothelioma affects the lining or membranes of certain large cavities in the body. These cavities, called the serous cavities, house certain major organs in the body including the heart, lungs, abdomen and others. The membranes that surround these cavities are called the serous membranes. They serve to protect these major organs from the friction and abrasion that occur as the organs move against each other during typical daily functioning, such as breathing and heart beating. The serous membranes derive from specialized cells called mesothelial cells. These cells form to create the mesothelium, which is the major tissue layer of the serous membranes. Cancer that occurs in the mesothelium tissue is called mesothelioma.
Mesothelioma is a rare & uncommon type of cancer which is almost always caused by exposure to asbestos. In mesothelioma, malignant type cells form and develop within the mesothelium. These cells also cover the outer surface of most internal organs. The tissue formed by these cells is called mesothelium. Mesothelioma is most common in the pleura which is the outer lining of the lungs, but it can also arise in the peritoneum or the pericardium which protects the heart.
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