[Sigmed-l] Google Health Prototype screen shots

[Catherine Arnott Smith]

Leonard D'Avolio wrote:
>
> That said, it's difficult to argue that the ability to more 
> effectively store one's health information, share it with providers, 
> search for related information, discuss\share with others in similar 
> situations, etc. isn't sorely needed.   
Oh, absolutely. No argument there. I'm just not wild about a commercial 
entity being in charge.

Re the release of information, I think the real problem with medical 
records is that they represent so many other people besides the patient, 
but the patient is the one who gives consent for everything regarding 
their use. This is a very OLD problem but genetic medicine, of course, 
makes it worse.

I've got major concerns, too, about data quality (based on the consumer 
health vocabulary work I've done.) Quoted from my presentation at 
ASIST's preconference last year, the woman who referred to an "exorcism 
of the lateral disk" is REALLY going to have trouble having her 
information needs met.

And to forestall a ruckus: No, I do not think patients (or consumers) 
are all like this. I just don't worry about the others!


-- 
Catherine Arnott Smith, PhD
Assistant Professor
School of Library and Information Studies
Room 4263 Helen C. White Hall
600 N. Park Street, Madison, WI 53706
Phone: (608) 890-1334
Fax: (608) 263-4849

***
The machine does not isolate us from the 
great problems of nature but plunges us 
more deeply into them.
--Antoine de Saint-Exupery

***
Form is never more than 
the extension of content.
--Robert Creely [quoted in C. Olson, 
"Projective Verse", 1950.]