CVS Joins Google Health

The more I consider what Google Health and Microsoft HealthVault are doing, the more I think that they just might have found the real solution to interoperable health records. I’m still holding out final judgment, but I’m really impressed with some of the things there doing.

For example, Techcrunch reported that Google Health just recently partnered with CVS for Google Health to connect with CVS to try and create a comprehensive pharmacy history. Considering Google had previously signed up Longs Drugs and Walgreens, Google is making good head way towards this goal. No doubt Google Health is also in discussions with Wal-Mart and Target, two of the other major players in this space.

Of course, the next step is to get patients to actually start adopting this technology. I can’t see many pharmacists pushing this feature. In fact, I’m guessing this might be an annoyance for them to have to support. Patients are going to have to force the issue if they want to use this. At least until there’s widespread adoption.

We’ll also leave the privacy issues of these connections for another day as well. Either way, these types of partnerships are like gold for Google Health. It creates a good foundation to build their product. I just still like to see more connections with EHR software vendors. I haven’t seen as many of those happening as I’d like to see.

About the author

John Lynn

John Lynn is the Founder of HealthcareScene.com, a network of leading Healthcare IT resources. The flagship blog, Healthcare IT Today, contains over 13,000 articles with over half of the articles written by John. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 20 million times.

John manages Healthcare IT Central, the leading career Health IT job board. He also organizes the first of its kind conference and community focused on healthcare marketing, Healthcare and IT Marketing Conference, and a healthcare IT conference, EXPO.health, focused on practical healthcare IT innovation. John is an advisor to multiple healthcare IT companies. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can be found on Twitter: @techguy.

3 Comments

  • Interesting assertion. Interoperability will probably be the biggest potential blunder during the HITECH implementation. The pharmacists are a good start, but I believe the physicians will be the hardest to move. I’m a little concerned concentrating so much private information into a couple of repositories, and then giving a whole host of people access.
    At least with Google / Microsoft we won’t have our information lost (Abandoned health records happen… will abandoned Electronic Health Records happen more?), but will we see the privacy issues as the problem they could eventually become?

  • I can’t disagree with you there. They’ve made interoperability a major part of the requirements for the HITECH act, but there is a strong possibility that it will be the HITECH act’s biggest failure. Too bad I’m sure some report writer in Washington can paint a pretty picture for Obama to read.

    No doubt privacy is a major concern with Google Health and Microsoft HealthVault and EHR in general.

    I liked this quote from the article you linked, “A single breach of a large EHR holder could ruin a large swath of people financially, socially, professionally, even their decedent’s insurability. Need examples: a religious official with an abortion on file, a positive HIV test in a long standing monogamous relationship, a genetic predisposition to alcoholism/obesity/violence. These probably led to HIPAA forcing your doctor to not leave voice mail messages on answering machines – now we have to deal with doctors upgrading desktops.”

    Sure makes you think a bit about privacy of records.

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