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Google and Microsoft have teamed with Intuit, WebMD and a consortium of more than 100 healthcare providers, insurers and consumer and privacy groups to develop a framework of practices governing online personal health record services. Under the leadership of the Markle Foundation, the Connecting for Health guidelines are an effort by PHR service proponents to establish a common set of principles, information practices and expectations. The adoption and implementation of these standards, the group said, will address major concerns about privacy among consumers, which a Foundation survey indicates is one impediment to the adoption of PHRs by the public.

Excerpt from:
Industry Players Outline Rules for Online Health Records

The launch of Healthline Networks’ HealthSTAT last week is one more indication that the Internet ad platform wars are far from over. To be sure, Google remains the giant to beat — and it looks as though it’s settling into its role as the long-term dominant player. However, HealthSTAT may be on the vanguard in the next significant skirmish within this multibillion dollar industry: the vertical front. HealthSTAT is a contextual, ad-matching engine that allows advertisers to post ads next to articles that are relevant to their products.

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Homing In on the Healthcare Consumer’s Needs

Microsoft and Kaiser Permanente announced plans for a pilot program that would exchange health information between the insurer’s My Health Manager service and the HealthVault personal health records service. The partnership comes amid a push to give people greater control of and access to their medical records. The move by technology companies including Google and Microsoft to bring personal health records online takes advantage of the shift from paper-based medical records to electronic health records by hospitals, doctors’ offices and insurers backed by the federal government.

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Kaiser Jumps Onto Microsoft’s Health Records Cloud

One of the common myths surrounding HIPAA is that it is not a privacy law at all, and that it weakened rather than strengthened individuals’ rights to health information privacy. That’s not the case at all, according to Deven McGraw, recently appointed director of the Center for Democracy & Technology’s Health Privacy Project. “This is completely unfounded. Before the HIPAA Privacy Rule was enacted, there were no federal standards protecting the privacy and security of health information,” McGraw said.

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HIPAA Revisited, Part 2: Seeking Balance