As always great post! Keep it flowing.

Did you get a chance to try out TrialX app?
It uses PHRs to find matching research studies.

The app is available on both Google Health and HealthVault

https://www.google.com/health/directory?url=trialx.org

http://www.healthvault.com/websites/AppliedInformatics-TrialX.html

Would love to hear your thoughts about this application.

Best
Sarah

You asked which of the PHR apps are good, and I can’t honestly tell you any that I think are superior to others. Nor do I have any clue at all about which ones might use the same API as google (although I’m not sure why that’s so important.)

What I can tell you is that AHIMA (American Health Information Management Association) keeps a list of PHRs on its website: http://myphr.org/resources/phr_search.asp

That list is comprised of the ones that charge a fee. (There is also a list of freebies which I think should be avoided.) It’s up to each of us to review privacy and legal statements to determine which ones will protect our information to the extent it needs to be protected.

You’re right, it’s a good post. And btw, I haven’t done the move yet… you’ll hear from me when I do.:)

5 ways google health could be better
http://mark.hullapalooza.com/5-ways-google-health-could-be

It’s worth a read.

This is why it’s an earthquake for me. I know all that, and for me I still choose to jump into the (data) pool, knowing it could have invisible bitey things in it.

But I fully understand the concern you cite and I don’t disagree with anyone who chooses differently from me; nothing could be a more personal choice than what to do with our health data. And if I’m about ANYthing, I’m about personal choice.

Please give us a list of the smaller subscription services. And let’s encourage ‘em to play along in the world of mash-ups! To do that, they’d need to use the same API (mash-up interface) as Google Health, which I would hope isn’t too difficult.

My gut response when you tweeted this question was “Boy, that’s gonna take some thought: what are the relative advantages? Especially since I don’t know details about PatientsLikeMe.”

But in two seconds I realized “It’s not either-or, so the question becomes, if I had the special value of PatientsLikeMe for that condition, would it change my thoughts about Google Health?” No. I’d still want access to that world of yummy mash-ups.

Time will tell but I won’t be at all surprised if in five years we find that “we out here” have built a world of viable, interoperable personal health records, and the stodgy old establishment will still not have figured out how to make one of their own that’s interoperable, so all those proprietary systems will just add ours as one of the formats they can read.

I hear what you’re saying, and I appreciate your analysis. What you haven’t accounted for is those groups OUTSIDE the government who want your information.

You seem to have stable employment and decent health insurance. But what about those who don’t? Last week 80,000 people who thought they had stable employment and decent insurance got laid off.

So your information goes online, gets hacked or sold by google or Microsoft, perhaps aggregated, perhaps not (esp if its hacked) — and your next potential employer gets ahold of it OR your next potential insurer learns of your pre-existing condition….

I’m a firm believer in PHRs and electronic records in general. But, the freebies like Health Vault and google health are huge targets. Better to go with one of the smaller, subscription services that will concentrate on better security and promises you (to the extent they can) to keep your identity anonymous.

Thanks for cross-posting here. One quick question (for me, anyway – it may take you longer to answer it):

If you had a condition covered by PatientsLikeMe, would you still choose Google Health?

As a patient, I now have more information available about my personal health, and therefore I have better information to enable better knowledge and decisions regarding my health care.

As a nurse, I want to help teach people how to access these low-cost or free services that help them gather the information they need to become more informed about their health. Google Health and Microsoft HealthVault software – and maybe others – provide this opportunity.