Google Health – It’s a Brave New World out there

There are two BIG problems that plague our health care system.

1. Patient records are not (except in rare instances) electronic. Managing and transferring those records are laborious and rather expensive tasks. (Paperwork makes up 21 percent of total health care costs.)

2. Consumers cannot easily make their own choices when it comes to getting healthcare because they lack critical information about costs and benefits of care versus no care.

Consumer-driven health plans don’t truly exist despite what our leaders tell us about health savings accounts (HSAs). HSAs are not the health care panacea they were supposed to be.

Google, who always is thinking BIG, thinks they have a solution.

Their solution is Google Health, a free online tool that enables you to upload your health records and share them with health care providers.

Scary as Heck? –YES.

Should we just give in to the reality? (Google already knows almost everything about us — why not just fill in the remaining gaps?)

Learn more: www.google.com/health