Following up on Tuesday’s posting, another question that came up a few times in our webcast, “MyHealth, Circa 2007: Consumer Needs and Market Responses in eHealth,” related to consumer privacy concerns.

I believe three things about privacy and security related to online personal health information (PHI).

1. Every provider, system, Web site or other entity that collects consumers’ PHI must invest time and resources to protect PHI and make a firm commitment to ensuring its privacy and security.
2. It can be done effectively–if done right, these electronic entitites should be able to protect PHI better than more traditional mechanisms for storing PHI. Many successful examples already exist in health care, but we can see even more examples in other industries. After all, it wasn’t long ago that experts said that people would never transmit credit card information online in order to buy books–yet Amazon seems to have a few customers.
3. Ultimately, what will make the difference for consumers is the value of the online tools. Most people who use online banking and shopping cannot imagine ever going back to the old way of doing business even though there always exists some risk for identity theft, etc. If online health tools provide consumers with clear, understandable, useful information that meets their particular needs, they will be willing to assume the minimal risk associated with online tools that make a strong commitment to protecting their PHI.

Let me be clear: I absolutely believe that consumers’ privacy and security concerns are real and critically important issues. We should and can address them fully.

–Josh

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 8th, 2007 at 9:01 pm and is filed under Health 2.0 Space, PHRs, The New Health Care Consumer. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.