 Security: Identity ManagementThis newsletter is sponsored by SymantecNetwork World's Security: Identity Management Newsletter, 10/15/07A healthy dose of identityBy Dave KearnsMicrosoft recently launched HealthVault as a beta release Web site and Web service. It’s the beginnings of a secure, centralized, user-controlled health record that can be easily accessed (with user permission) by healthcare providers throughout the world. Health and medical data, though, are “hot buttons” for privacy advocates. Many of these same people consider “Microsoft” to be a hot button word, also. To put it mildly, they don’t like having “Microsoft” and “health records” in the same press release. Rather than excoriate the more strident critics, I’d like to point you towards a more reasoned (though flawed) review of the site and its technology by my friend, Linux Journal Editor Doc Searls. Doc is interested in HealthVault in his capacity as head of Project VRM (Vendor Relationship Management), a fascinating subject in its own right. In his blog, Searls writes: “I believe that many of our health care problems, including the high number of people killed each year by bad or absent data, can only be solved by a fully decentralized system, rather than by a centralized one (or ones) run by governments, businesses, or some combination of both. Unless the individual patient is the point of integration for health services, we’ll continue to have a system that consists of multiple silos, each with their own separate data stores, each raising the risks of error and ignorance, which in health care can too often mean the difference between life and death.”
I’m in full agreement that many people die (or suffer) needlessly every year because the data that a healthcare provider needed wasn’t available – or wasn’t made available. But I also believe that the reason for this is precisely because it’s such a decentralized system – I have health data stored with doctors, pharmacies and hospitals in California, Texas, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island, and very little of it is coordinated! And much as I believe in the need for user-control over the dissemination of data, it’s precisely because of the actions of the user that the data isn’t available. I’m sure you’ve had the experience of going to a new doctor, or checking into a hospital, and being presented with a lengthy questionnaire asking about your medical history, current conditions, drugs you’re taking (or are allergic to), family health history, etc. It’s a mind-numbing, wrist-wrenching, seemingly-time-wasting experience. It’s also fraught with failure points. The more times data has to be entered by a human, the more places that data is stored, the more likely it is for errors to creep in. That’s one of the major reasons why a corporate identity project should include a virtual directory – a single authoritative source for data which is made available everywhere it’s needed. Microsoft might not be my first choice as protector of my health and medical data, but the premise of HealthVault and the promise of HealthVault are what we need to ensure that we receive the best possible healthcare when and where we need it. Upcoming events from the IdM Journal calendar: * Nov. 2: ACM Workshop on Digital Identity Management, Fairfax, Va.
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| Contact the author: Dave Kearns is the editor of IdM, the Journal of Identity Management as well as a consultant to both vendors and users of IdM technologies. He's written a number of books including the (sadly) now out of print "Complete Guide to eDirectory." His other musings can be found at the Virtual Quill, an Internet publisher which provides content services to network vendors: books, manuals, white papers, lectures and seminars, marketing, technical marketing and support documents. Virtual Quill provides "words to sell by..." Find out more by e-mail. Comments to this newsletter can be e-mailed to Dave here. This newsletter is sponsored by SymantecARCHIVEArchive of the Security: Identity Management Newsletter. BONUS FEATUREIT PRODUCT RESEARCH AT YOUR FINGERTIPS Get detailed information on thousands of products, conduct side-by-side comparisons and read product test and review results with Network World’s IT Buyer’s Guides. Find the best solution faster than ever with over 100 distinct categories across the security, storage, management, wireless, infrastructure and convergence markets. Click here for details. PRINT SUBSCRIPTIONS AVAILABLE International subscribers, click here. SUBSCRIPTION SERVICESTo subscribe or unsubscribe to any Network World newsletter, change your e-mail address or contact us, click here. This message was sent to: security.world@gmail.com. Please use this address when modifying your subscription. Advertising information: Write to Associate Publisher Online Susan Cardoza Network World, Inc., 118 Turnpike Road, Southborough, MA 01772 Copyright Network World, Inc., 2007 |
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