Wal-Mart Takes the PHR Plunge – Dossia Personal Health Records

This project has had it's issues getting off the ground amidst law suits, etc. The companies will pay a transaction fee for each employee and contribute 1.5 million each for the project. There are some pretty big names here.

So we are back to the area of “trust” once more, so do you trust an employer offered personal health record? What happens if you leave? I would guess you would still have to be able to have access, but after that fact let’s say you go to work for an employer who does not have this plan? Then do you continue to contribute or will the plan be dropped at some point since the employers are paying a transaction fee and may not want to pay this when you are gone, just for comparison sake? I don’t know what the schedule is to speak any more on that side of the subject.

It states claim information will be populated, but I’m thinking one could get the same from the MIB, who all the insurance carriers use anyway to exchange data on all of us, so why not have them open it up to import to our PHR and be done with that part of it.

You can find out more at the site, but personally I’ll take my chances with HealthVault or Google Health first as my choice as it is no way tied to an employer, and right now with some of the proposed legislation for healthcare reform, that move is somewhat alive and well to get the insurance monkey off the employer’s backs too, as who knows what will be in store down the road, none of us do really, so for the record keeping stuff for me, I feel better with the “no strings attached” and “free” services that are offered and you also have a huge selection of vendors to choose from with both of them, something it might take Dossia a while to catch up on. BD

Employees at Wal-Mart Stores Inc. who qualify for health insurance are being offered personal health records using technology from WebMD Health Corp., New York, and Dossia, an employer coalition. The records initially will be populated with claims data from health plans and pharmacies, says Colin Evans, president of Portland, Ore.-based Dossia. Bentonville, Ark.-based Wal-Mart is one of eight corporations involved in the coalition.

The philosophy behind the Dossia effort is we’re trying to uncouple people from being locked into any one aspect of the health care system,” Evans says. For example, Dossia gathers data from multiple sources and enables individuals to access the information from one source.