Google Health. No, really - Google to index medical records in Cleveland

www.theregister.co.uk...

Today, the search engine cum world power announced a joint project with the Cleveland Clinic, an 87-year-old not-for-profit medical center, that will see between 1,500 and 10,000 of the center's patients entrust their personal records to Larry Page and Sergey Brin.

Yes, between 1,500 and 10,000. Presumably, Google and the Cleveland Clinic anticipate that a few thousand patients will ultimately decide this idea is way too creepy.

no kidding.

Google envisions a time when its service allows any brave soul to shuttle records to and from multiple doctors, pharmacies, and other healthcare providers.

Yes, many will be reluctant to share their records with a company that already stores their search histories and indexes their email.

and get ready for the really creepy part:

the laws that govern what doctors can do with a patient's medical records wouldn't apply to Larry Page and Sergey Brin. "Because of the structure of HIPAA, its privacy protections do not generally follow a health record,"

what do you think? what is the big deal with privacy and medical records anyways? That's an honest question, I have no idea why someone would care more about their medical history than email history, financial privacy, etc. (all the stuff that's not private already, with or without google).

[edit on 21-2-2008 by scientist]