We need a Medical Facebook

Deloitte's Health Care Consumerism Survey has some pretty interesting results. I think it attracted a biased sample of consumers though, mainly because of this finding: 1 in 4 consumers maintain a personal health record. I find that very hard to believe, especially when the word, "maintain", is used. "Started", "created but never used" would be more fitting.

PHRs are ubiquitous - hospitals, insurers, popular medical websites all provide them - but people rarely use or update them. You put your information in, register a login and never look at it again. Why? Because its not connected to anyone. Even with all your medical info in one place, you don't have the ability to share that information very easily. Docs have to know about it, support it and use it in order for it to work. Otherwise, its just a Facebook profile without any friends!

Here's another reason why PHRs won't take off any time soon:

"Tethered" means linked only to a provider or a hospital and "standalone" refers to a web-based service like WebMD or Microsoft's HealthVault. Its hard to build a Facebook, let alone a medically-based version with all the privacy/security issues involved. The need is obviously there. PHRs won't take off without it.

EDIT: Doctors don't trust PHRs because they don't link to anything they use on a regular basis. Get connected!