In yet another sign that health care is finally getting wise to the power of those computer thinggies, one of the country’s largest health insurers has unveiled a tool that should help customers take better care of themselves:
Aetna Inc. launched a Web-based search site on Wednesday that allows customers to generate information about disease risks, medical costs, and local doctors using their electronic health records.
But don’t get too excited just yet. Aetna plans to spend this year testing the system with 20 to 25 big corporate customers who cover about 1.5 million employees.
The big question I’d have about this plan is whether users can take the data with them if they leave Aetna for some other company. If not, I’d wonder why patients would choose this sort of system over competing ones from Microsoft and Google, which tie themselves to given patients rather than given insurers.
That said, there is one advantage to the Aetna idea, which is powered by software from a company called Healthline.
Google and Microsoft would both require patients to endure the hassle of entering medical info into their systems — and trusting that it will be kept secure. Aetna, on the other hand, already has patient data, so it should be pretty easy to keep the system up to date, as long as patients stay with Aetna.
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