If you read here often enough then you know I have been a big advocate of personal health records, but I just wanted to add a short little commentary here on 
the huge amount of press the discontinuation of Google Health has received. If this was a product that is being shuttered due to lack of interest, why all the big press? I guess I am adding to it, but again trying to keep all updated but in the last week this is totally ironic that so much time and effort has been directed in bringing the news around. It just seems like a bit of an oxymoron if you will, right? I added a tweet on Twitter to this effect and had several agreeing with me as to the substantial press given for something being discontinued for lack of interest, oh well. I’m just trying to make sense of of press again which maybe I should leave that alone. 
Google Health Personal Health Records Will Call It Quits Effective January 1, 2012
Ok back on track here for those who were using Google Health, watch for an announcement to come forth within a few days to make it easier to transfer your health records, and this is good news so if you hold off for a few days, as Google Health records are not going anywhere for a while and you have time, this may make the process a little easier. I do wonder at some point in time if we will ever hear about how many files were actually transferred?
Right now though if you look at where software overall is going in healthcare it’s a mess and we have way too many technologies out there and frankly I’m a bit worn out here at the Medical Quack on updating some of this too, and I’m not speaking of the PHRs here, but all the other garbage that looms out there. With everyone “marketing their ass off” and all the privacy issues in the news and with some good reasons for concerns, where does one put their priorities today?
For a couple of years now I have written frequently about the folks who write these blazing reviews on PHRs and then find the authors themselves have never touched one or created an account at all, but merely somewhat are posing as “healthcare magpies” out there and for some reason or another find this driving force to be an “expert” and tell others what they should do when they don’t buy in themselves, just a odd observation that’s 
been somewhat going on since PHRs began. It would certainly be nice to have a few less “healthcare consumer magpies” out there and would reduce the size of my inbox on some of the software being created for consumers today.
When it comes to lack of role models there’s no bigger black eye here on this topic than HHS, NIH and CMS themselves and that’s the danger of having a department staffed with too many of what I call “non participants” themselves but somehow take the stand of being experts at telling everyone else what they should do, a sad state of affairs for the consumers by all means and here’s a link to a prior post, one of several where some of my own feelings are spoken.
Again, this is not to discount PHRs and the services that Google Health and HealthVault are providing as I have and use my HealthVault account and try to share what I learn with others, but just one more time to point out a huge weakness in how some areas of the government fail with providing motivation and incentives for consumers, a sad state of affairs indeed and they just don’t get it. BD 
NIH Announces Plan to Develop Medical Image Sharing for PHRs-Role Models Would Help Stamp Out “Magpie Healthcare”
On July 5th, the companies plan to announce that Google Health users will be able to transfer their health records to new or existing Microsoft HealthVault accounts using the emerging, Direct Protocol open standard for secure health data exchange, said Nate McLemore, Microsoft general manager of business development and policy, Health Solutions Group.
Using the Direct Protocol to transfer Google Health records into HealthVault means Google Health users will be able to "email" their health data to themselves, and then upload the information into their HealthVault accounts, said McLemore.
"Direct Protocol will make it easier," he said. Currently, Google Health users essentially need to "cut and paste" records from GoogleHealth to HealthVault, he said.
While the two companies work on a streamlined process for transferring files using the Direct Protocol, Google Health has posted instructions on how to "manually" move health data to HealthVault.
McLemore would not estimate the number of Google Health users that Microsoft expects to transfer their data to HealthVault, although "we can scale" to support any number of users, he said.
Microsoft Reaps Spoils Of Google Health's Demise -- InformationWeek
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