I've discussed how healthcare is running away from a desktop centric model toward mobility. The days of complete reliance on desktop data entry is coming to an end as healthcare IT relies more and more on mobile health. Privacy on the desktop for the most part was protected by Clinton era HIPAA privacy policies well before health apps became a downloadable consumer preoccupation.
Mobile health brings privacy to a new playing field. Unlike desktop medical applications where enterprises created barriers to information, mobile health apps are distributed directly to patient consumers. This is refreshing, in that gathering health data has become extensible, distributable, while at the same time affordable.  Will mobile health be allowed to sustain its impressive growth?

I just had a first look at today's blekko.com, a new search engine that allows users to store and share search results. If you believe Duncan Riley's Pass The Bong post then read no further. However, if you're open to the idea that there's a real need for trusted sources to pass along links and search results to a set of followers then read on.

Healthcare lacks a link economy. One that aggregates from a trusted source, such as a physician or an empowered cancer survivor to build a set of search results and links to then save and share with others. blekko.com attempts to assemble that shared knowledge in a conduit we all know and understand: a search engine.

Alex Howard (@digiphile) nails it this week on a Radar O'Reilly post "Shiny app syndrome and Gov 2.0. Why governments need to start with mobile sites, not native apps."
Howard writes on the new revamped Texas.gov website introduced at Govfresh Gov 2.0 conference in Manor, Texas. The state's included mobile application is only available as an Apple iPhone app. During the question answer session, Brownell Chalstrom from the audience questioned it's citizen accessibility. He suggested that government shouldn't spend taxpayer dollars on application development, rather release the data to the community and let the community of developers come up with the best solution. Mr. Chalstrom goes on further to suggest that the app should've been made into a web app, one that runs within any mobile browser.

Medicine and social media are just getting to know each other. The engaged patient is shaking hands with Facebook, Twitter and a mountain of medical websites. As the patient is busy consuming and disseminating these media inlets, how does one get to retroactively participate?
That's what the folks at the Institute for the Future are trying to partly answer. Together with the Myelin Repair Foundation and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, they've developed breakthroughstocures.org– a web-based game that tries to solve neurological disease by relying on sourcing shared participatory discussion.
Their idea being that clear and original thinking can surface to the top of drug discovery for such diseases as Multiple Sclerosis. Discussion from a crowd who are unrelated to the research itself, can yield agreeable answers or predictions. This can then shape future drug discovery patterns and processes.

Now up for sale is the new Kindle 3. Weighing in at a mere 8.5 ounces, it’s roughly a third the weight of the iPad and 35% smaller.  Pricing begins at $139, hundreds less than the iPad. Why am I daring to begin to compare a 6" e-Ink screen with a gorgeous 9.7" color device?

The past two weeks of ONC hearings on NHIN have been intense. About as intense as healthcare policy reform can get when it comes to getting multiple sides, both business and government, to agree on standards.  The ONC Privacy subcommittee dubbed the 'Tiger Team', was responsible for recommending the technical protocols a patient health record rides on and the business logic of how vendors are to exchange patient data with each other.
Within a very compressed time frame, the Tiger Team's tasks are running on these separate rails.

This year personal data privacy has taken a fierce momentum into the consumer mindset like never before. That's due in part by notable blunders. The empowered consumer, and now increasingly the empowered patient, are understanding what it means to be private. That it's not just about encrypting and safeguarding data, but also the relationships guardians of our data are making with others.
That's a new precedent. Every major consumer facing digital implementation will from now onwards be thoroughly analyzed for such relationships. Scrutiny to the privacy and policies of the new ARRA HITECH act even more so.