Will you trust your health records to Google?

Adam Bosworth, vice president for engineering at Google, has been talking about health information for several months, and the Internet giant's interest in the health field has been widely known. Last week, he spoke at the American Medical Information Association's annual convention in Orlando, outlining a vision that includes:

• Discovery - Consumers should be able to discover the most relevant health information
possible 
• Action - Consumers should have direct access to personalized services to help them get
the best and most convenient possible health support 
• Community - Consumers should be able to learn from and educate those in similar health
circumstances and from their health practitioners 

Then he digs deeper into the technical and human factors likely to pose a challenge to achieving these goals. In the realm of privacy, he offers an existing Google solution, Account Authentication Proxy for Web-Based Applications, also known as Auth/Sub:

When two parties on the web want to give rights to each other, both of them share what are called “public keys,” which is tech talk for a way to be sure that the other side is who they say they are. The first site authenticates the user.... It then redirects to the second site with the URL to redirect back to. The second site then separately authenticates the user..., makes sure that the rights are clear in terms of what the first site can do with respect to the second, and then returns to the first site. There is then an exchange between the two web servers just to make sure no one intercepted some web traffic and tried to spoof this. Then a long magic number known as an authsub token is shared between them that permits the first site (and only the first site) limited rights to data in the second site for a given patient/consumer.

Google's array of products is almost indispensable these days. I use Gmail, Blogger, Google Reader and more, despite feeling slightly creeped out when I notice that my past searches are reflected in the ads served. They're great products, easy to use, and make my online life flow more smoothly. I really appreciate the recent improvements to health search that let me narrow the results to precisely the information I'm seeking.

One question Bosworth did not address is how Google is going to make money from its presumably-forthcoming health products. I bet I'm not the only one raising an eyebrow at the prospect of contextual advertising on my personal health records. What do you think?

PDF of Bosworth's notes from the speech is here.

Comments

[Craig]

Fascinating topic, post. As I sit here typing, on the shelf next to me is a folder full of photocopies of about a decade of my blood work. Yet my online banking information is almost entirely digitized and paperless. Clearly medicine has to catch up.

I share your fears about the ubiquity of Brother Google. But the more companies that wrap their brains around this problem, the better, I say.

[Francisco Lupiáñez]

I think Google will earn money just selling the information about their users. Search engines are not just tools, they have political, economic and social implications. You can apply the comparation between healthcare and Web 2.0 to Google.

[Pat Washburn]

Interesting points, Francisco. And pretty scary -- do I want my blood type to become a selling point?

[Alex]

Google knows all and sees all. Its very scary, if the Google power fell into the wrong hands we are all in trouble.