Bill Gates - Health Care Needs an Internet Revolution
October 5th, 2007 by NealWhile this is clearly part of the marketing effort Microsoft launched yesterday with the advent of HealthVault, Bill Gates has an interesting op-ed piece in today’s Wall Street Journal (may require subscription). He makes some interesting points, the general tone of which I agree. First, he addesses the data silos that exist in the various part of our massive healthcare system and the problem of data liquidity:
At the heart of the problem is the fragmented nature of the way health information is created and collected. Few industries are as information-dependent and data-rich as health care. Every visit to a doctor, every test, measurement, and procedure generates more information. But every clinic, hospital department, and doctor’s office has its own systems for storing it. Today, most of those systems don’t talk to each other.
This is a topic near and hear to us here at PointClear, and was of particular interest to folks at the Health 2.0 conference.
The problem is, how does one maintain security and privacy once the walls of the silos start breaking down? Microsoft may do a great job securing the HealthVault platform, but what about all the third-party vendors and partners who write applications that use HealthVault? If health information sloshes back and forth between these third parties, and some of the third parties have insufficient security which can potentially lead to data breaches, then how secure is HealthVault in practice?
That makes this comment by Mr. Gates a little frightening:
No one company can — or should — hope to provide the single solution to make all of this possible. That’s why Microsoft is working with a wide range of software and hardware companies, as well as with physicians, hospitals, government organizations, patient advocacy groups and consumers to ensure that, together, we can address critical issues like privacy, security and integration with existing applications.
The ‘wide range’ of companies Microsoft intend to work with would seem to have a negative impact on ‘issues like privacy, security’.
October 7th, 2007 at 1:02 pm
[…] Neal wrote a fantastic post today on “Bill Gates - Health Care Needs an Internet Revolution”Here’s ONLY a quick extractMicrosoft may do a great job securing the HealthVault platform, but what about all the third-party vendors and partners who write applications that use HealthVault? If health information sloshes back and forth between these third … […]
January 11th, 2008 at 12:24 am
Health 2.0 is derived from the term Web 2.0, which implies a 2nd generation/release of the Internet.
The ‘2.0′ part was established within computer programming - as a new edition of a an application is released, it is common practice for the programmers to add an incrementing number at the end of a program’s name, to label the new version.
Web 2.0 implies the ‘2nd release’ of the Internet, which of course is not based on anything concrete. The Internet being made up of millions upon millions of interconnecting computers running lots of various programs, but is more of a concept to describe the type of programs/applications/functionality one can now locate on the Internet.
The Internet was initially complied of mainly static pages of data. Soon to follow was email, web forums and chat rooms where discussions could take place. Web 2.0 refers to a trend on the Internet that saw a step forward in the way users conduct communicate over the Internet, which includes the use of blogs, videos, podcasts, wikis and online communities where people with common interests get together to share ideas, media, code and all types of information.
Web 2.0 technologies such as social networking, blogs, patient communities and online tools for search and self-care management look as though they will permanently alter the healthcare landscape indefinitely.
As with Web 2.0, there is a lot of debate about the meaning of the term ‘health 2.0′. The Wall Street Journal recently attempted to define Health 2.0 as:
“The social-networking revolution is coming to health care, at the same time that new Internet technologies and software programs are making it easier than ever for consumers to find timely, personalized health information online. Patients who once connected mainly through email discussion groups and chat rooms are building more sophisticated virtual communities that enable them to share information about treatment and coping and build a personal network of friends. At the same time, traditional Web sites that once offered cumbersome pages of static data are developing blogs, podcasts, and customized search engines to deliver the most relevant and timely information on health topics.”
While this traditional view of the definition imputes it as the merging of the Web 2.0 phenomenon within healthcare. I personally believe it’s so much more. In my opinion, Health 2.0 goes way beyond just the permeant social networking technology to include a complete renaissance in the way that Healthcare is actually delivered and conveyed.
Source - www.rxpop.com