Archive for October 2nd, 2006
Another Article on Patient Web Pages
October 2, 2006
This time from USA Today including citations of Carepages and others. “Mehring’s non-profit service is called
CaringBridge and is supported largely through donations, plus some hospital sponsors. The Langshurs’ for-profit service is called CarePages and has licensing agreements with about 500 health care facilities, including top-tier hospitals such as the Mayo Clinic and Cleveland Clinic. The participating hospitals add their logos to patients’ pages and get other benefits — including exposure to potential donors. Another service is theStatus.com.
“Though details differ, all the services allow anyone with computer access — in or outside a hospital — to quickly, at
no charge, set up a Web page to post updates and receive messages.
“One important feature: These highly personal sites aren’t detectable by search engines. Users can restrict who sees
them — or broadcast access information as widely as they like.”
Again, security and privacy in the context of social networking is key to the success and boarder adoption of these tools.
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Consumer-Directed Health Care Should Include Privacy
October 2, 2006
In a report on transparency on privacy issues by Jane Sarasohn-Kahn on iHealthbeat discusses the AMIA report on secondary use of health data, the author cites the constructive uses of such data for medical research. Educating consumers about this use is essential. “We cannot expect consumers to engage in the brave new world of consumer-driven health care without their expecting – and getting – privacy protections that stick.” Tying consumer-driven healthcare and these secondary uses of data is important in empowering the consumer to take ownership of their data including allowing its use for research.
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