Microsoft and Google involvement on health 2.0 - Privacy concerns

Yesterday NY Times published a review about an article which was written recently on New England Journal of Medicine

The issue : Privacy concerns regarding MS and google's PHR web based projects .

Some of the concerns are well known and based by strong evidence and theories (ofcourse you can read them on the attached link to the article or in the original review on New England) but still everyone should remember several points as well :

1. Its time that the health sector and consumers will earn and get benefits from the highly speed emerging technology on the web.

2. Privacy is a major an important issue but we should not prevent progressing by adopting technology on behalf of being "privacy guards".

3. Strong power and influence by several major companies on tremendous highly valuble health data is maybe not the optimal situation but the involvement of this two giants in the health sector is going to bring prosperity to the health 2.0 world and eventually to the "general" and traditional health sector. More powefull health sector means better services for the public .

I will be more than pleased to hear and listen to my collegues thoughts and ideas regarding this issue

Microsoft vision on health

Maybe some of you will have the chace to participate in the free event that is going to take place between Aprill 22 and April 24 in Atlantic City New Jersey:

Microsoft Health & Life Sciences Developer and Solutions Conference 2008

Watch the attached link to understand more deeply about the contents and participants among Microsoft executives.

The mission statement by their own words:
"It is a unique event designed for developers, architects, technical and business decision makers in the healthcare industry. Please join us to discover how Microsoft, its partners, and customers make possible the delivery of Software + Services in Health & Life Sciences".

This year it looks more important than ever because of the emerging influence of the health 2.0 on Microsot strategic and tactics in the health and life science sector.

Opensource tools in The health 2.0 arena

Im sharing with you a fine post who summerize by the writer words :

" 100 opensource tools to the medical professionals"
Some of the tools are general ones but can contribute as well to professional in the health sector . There are also several tools in the list that are targeting to the benefits of the patients.
The subcategories are mentioned there :

1. Medical Billing and Electronic Medical Records
2. Antivirus, Security and Privacy ( protection of patients and research data)
3.Communications
4.Graphics and Imaging (for brain imaging, 3d imaging etc.)
5.Content Management Tools
6.Research and Reference (assisting in research work and study)
7.Multimedia ( for audio , visual and mobile files)
8.Storing Patient Information
9.General Tools that Work for Everyone
10.Collaboration Tools (with other medical professionals)
11.Storing, Sharing and Managing Files
12.For Patients (introduce these tools with your patients).

Worth looking into it and find some helping tools.
Thanks Sally for sharing with me this post.

Virtual E- visit

Hello

Today I found an excellent post about an interesting topic :

Virtual e-visit : " A truth or a myth" .

Here you can find the link to the post from "The life ledger" blog .

Its about the rising scene on the net of patients meet their physicians by virtual meetings.
There you can find already known reference such as :

"Jay Parkinson clinic"
"San Francisco on call medical group"

But, more than that is the fact that insurance companies are taking very seriously this scene .

What is missing in this post is reference to new ventures appearing these days such as the new platform for e-visits : Americanwell.com
and analysis/discussion about the upcoming influence of the "giants platforms" : Google weaver and Microsoft Healthvault on this subject.