Next moves for Google

I'm pleased to say that more than a few of you responded to my invitation [1] to comment on Google's healthcare moves. You certainly had some intriguing ideas as to how Google should position itself in healthcare.

One reader suggested Google was a near-ideal intermediary for patient data collection:

"The patient populations who will benefit the most, and be Google's greatest source of pressure to drive adoption, are those patients with chronic diseases. Care delivery for chronic disease is centered around medical device data--glucometers, non-invasive blood pressure monitors, weight scales, and more. Leaving patients to manually enter this data themselves will not work for most patients, and sending caregivers to the home to gather readings will be too expensive. Google is uniquely positioned to provide plug-and-play connectivity for any site with an Internet connection or even a mobile phone." -- Healthcare connectivity consultant

Another suggested it's really not such a big deal which EMR vendor Google acquires, assuming it does:

"Seventy-five of the EMR challenge is integration with departmental systems, not the core EMR per se. So I suggest Google build the technology anew, leveraging some existing parts (e.g. workflow managers, HL7 interface engines, DB reference models)." -- Interim CIO and IT consultant

Yet another letter-writer suggested that the EMR itself could be a straw man:

"Google wouldn't care how revolutionary the EMR is--but whether they can tie ad space to folks who will voluntarily offer up de-identified personal health information in trade for the discounts provided by being a member of a virtual near real-time Pharmacy Benefits Management company." -- Systems architect

Right now, let's face it, predicting what Google will do is virtually a parlor game, as the company really hasn't tipped its hand. But some major power shifts are likely to happen if Google gets aggressive in HIT. I'll keep you posted as things happen. - Anne [2]