Google Continues Its Plans to Take Over the World

Google has just entered into an agreement with the Cleveland Clinic to develop its personal health record (PHR) platform.

I haven't completely made up my mind, but if we're pushing for portability and independence, then I think that is probably better than having what's also known as an electronic health record (EHR) with one's insurer.

Aetna has a seemingly comprehensive (and I believe the first of such depth) personal health record system that Aetna members may use, and to which their health care activity is automatically added. Members may supplement that with their own entries about family medical history and other pertinent information.

But what if you want to change insurers? If you keep it on Google with your photos and email and other stuff, then it's probably worth the extra work of putting the information in yourself. You may read an article here about Google's plans with the Cleveland Clinic or check out Aetna's PHR here.

Delicate Genius Alert!

Dr. Scott Haig, an orthopedic surgeon in New York, has written a piece in Time about patients who Google. I have wondered how the abundance of health information on line has impacted the communication between doctor and patient, and here is an inside look. The phenomenon seems to irritate him quite a bit.

Frankly, the doctor comes off as a pompous jerk. He berates the patient for being selfish, but I think most normal people out there can sympathize with a person who is sick or injured. This doctor seems to prefer when patients don't ask too many questions, but on the other hand, ridicules "non-compliant Bozos who won't read anything longer than a headline. They don't want to know what's wrong with them, they don't know what medicines they're taking, they don't even seem to care what kind of operation you're planning to do on them. 'Just get me better, doc,' is all they say."

George Costanza would definitely throw his hands up about this delicate genius.

You've Got Gmail

This is from Gmail's "New Features" section on Gmail.com -

"It's a Gmail party and everyone is invited!
You can still invite your friends to enjoy Gmail's spam protection, 2.8 GB free storage and other great features, but now you can also just tell them to visit www.gmail.com and sign up without an invitation."

I highly recommend that you sign up for an account. It takes a little getting used to if you've been an AOL user for most of your email life, but Gmail is intuitive and it's easy to change settings, set up email alerts for topics that interest you, like, oh, say, "WhealthWatcher$".

100 Best Companies to Work for (2007)

Google takes the top spot this year. Review the full list on CNNMoney.com. You can search by state, by pay, by size, etc. Check out the "A day in the life of a Googler" video here. You might just want to send in one of those resumes they receive every 25 seconds.

Some Stuff You Need To Know

From Popular Mechanics:

"10 Tech Concepts You Need to Know for 2007 From concrete that can flex to sensors that you swallow, here are the technologies you’ll be talking about."

As we are bombarded by more and more information, and burdened with rapidly increasing amounts of personal data, photos, and music, the "data cloud" will become an essential tool for managing one's life. It is the last of the ten concepts listed, and it will be huge. Google's Gdrive is sure to be a big hit, offering "unlimited storage" of information that can be accessed online from anywhere, just like your email.