What would happen if our medical records were made available via Google or Microsoft?

This is the question currently being raised by politicians following the current NHS IT project, the Care Records Service, which is being criticised for going over budget and taking too long to set up following its introduction into England. Would it better to hand the job of storing medical records over to private firms, such as Google or Microsoft?

In the US, Google Health and Microsoft HealthVault are already both in use. Google Health currently allows Americans to create online health profiles, download their own records from doctors and pharmacies, and to search medical information and treatments. But Google stresses this would not work in the UK, as the healthcare systems are so vastly different.

Similarly Microsoft’s HealthVault system allows users to control what information they share and says it is in talks already with the NHS, although as an add-on service rather than a replacement for the Care Records Service.

The question about how medical data is made available at least shows that the politicians are becoming aware of the web-savvy generation, who demand more access to their data.

So it may seem a far away idea that we’ll be storing our medical records along with our emails on Google. But maybe not as far away as we think…