Last Friday, Larry Ellison, founder and chairman of Oracle Corp. (Nasdaq: ORCL), gave us his vision on the need for a global medical register. He said that he looks forward to seeing the development of an information system that will gather medical data on everyone, in a similar fashion to the financial applications in existence today, which we have at our disposal as a matter of course. As Ellison sees it, a person outside his own country who needs medical attention, can visit a local doctor, who will be able to access his entire medical history with one click of his mouse. In addition, the database can help promote medical research worldwide. The information it will contain could be used, for example, to calculate the number of people using a certain drug, their personal characteristics (age, gender), and the drug's efficacy. All this information, of course, would be accessed in a "blind" manner that would not reveal any identifying details of patients.
Much has been said on this issue in Israel and the world. A number of Israeli companies are at the forefront of medical database management technology. Computerized medicine has become increasingly widespread in both Israel and elsewhere. Computerizing medical records is now an integral part of the activity of medical institutions, health insurance providers, doctors, and it also empowers patients with the means to obtain a full picture of the their state of health.
This field has recently undergone a extensive change in concept. The prevailing approach today calls for medical records to be patient-focused, whether they are held by medical institutions, or held by the patient as a personal medical file. What patients are interested in is the medical history that has been accrued on them at various institutions, information that is germane to their own specific state of health, and which can help them in improving it.
The individual's need to search for information on specific medical conditions, has been reinforced further by the publication of recent surveys that indicate an increase in the number of people searching for medical information on the Internet. In the US alone, the number now stands at 160 million people, compared with 136 million two years ago. The problem is that this information is general and often does not correspond exactly to the medical condition of the person making the search.
Here in Israel, the rate of computerization at medical institutions is extremely high, compared with the norm elsewhere. Yet despite this, only a fraction of this information is accessible to patients (usually lab test results). While providers of information are required by law to forward such information to patients at their request, they are not obliged to do send it in electronic form, even if it has already been stored in that format on computers at medical institutions.
Were the state to introduce an amendment to existing legislation requiring institutions to forward information in electronic form to patients on request, it would represent a dramatic breakthrough. Such an amendment would save lives in cases of emergency, prevent medical errors caused by the lack of available medical history on the patient, and save healthcare costs. At the patient level, it would enable patients to play a hands-on role in the management of their medical conditions, and follow-up chronic diseases such as diabetes, or conditions requiring ongoing monitoring such as pregnancy.
The combination of security technology and medical confidentiality as outlined in the aforementioned solution, gives researchers and policymakers anonymous access to medical records, something that will bring about a marked improvement in the standard of health among the general public, support comparative research and, obviously, improve the personal state of health of each and every one of us.
Larry Ellison's vision, like those of Google and Microsoft in this field, can be implemented immediately in Israel and in other countries, by using Israeli technologies - and putting the individual at the forefront of the solution.
The writer is founder and CEO of Global Medical Networks (GMN) Ltd., developer of the LifeOnKey database system
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes.co.il - on August 15, 2007
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