Bogus privacy concerns keep us from having access to our own healthcare records, said Esther Dyson in the Huffington Post last month. As Quicken was to our money (it unlocked our financial records) we need the technology to get a look-see at our doctors’ records. That’s the message from a new advocacy group, www.healthdatarights.org.
Dyson, a Princeton native, speaks at the Princeton Chamber this Thursday, July 9, at an 11:30 lunch at the Princeton Forrestal Marriott on (take a breath) “How can you weave together Silicon Valley, genomes, Russia, and space into a single talk?” She’s in great demand among the digerati for her forecasting expertise, but she is also known for being able to explain puzzling technology to the non-techies of the world.
“Good health (not just healthcare) starts with individuals managing their own health and understand the impact of their own conditions and behavior,” writes Dyson. I can think of several Princeton-based companies that have staked their future on that proposition, among them, Princeton Living Well.
We need to be able to control our own data, and if the banks can figure out how to do it, the “privacy” excuse is a sham. If we can access our bank accounts online, why not our vaccination records?
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