Microsoft beat them to the punch, but Google has announced that they, too, are planning to roll out a service that lets consumers store their medical records online and transfer them between health care providers as needed. Marissa Mayer at Google said the idea was spawned after reports of lost or damaged records in the wake of Hurricane Katrina: “It doesn’t make sense to generate this volume of information on paper. It should be something that is digital. People should have control over their own records.” Mayer says they hope to include things like x-rays, and that it “will take a lot of breakthroughs in digitization.”

Talk about mixed feelings: having control over your medical records, and having them in the cloud so that you don’t have to worry about paper trails or losing data, would be a huge improvement in consumer control. On the other hand, if Google gets much more information about you on its servers, it will be able to create a clone who can seek you out and try to kill you.

We’re waiting for the option in 3-5 years where you can store your genome with Google and then see ads relevant to your genetic predispositions, ’cause you know it’s going to happen. (I wonder if Google will try to hire me now for that idea!)

“Google unveils plans for online personal health records” [ComputerWorld] (warning: obnoxious ad with audio embedded in page)
“Microsoft To Launch ‘Search-Engine Supported’ Site For Health Records”
(Photo: Getty)

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