Who's Afraid of Google Health? Concerns over personal privacy "misguided" By Michael Foreman Posted May 23, 2008 11:51 AM CDT Copied Eric Schmidt, Chairman and CEO of Google, discusses Google Health at the Healthcare Information and Management System Society Conference in Orlando, Fla., Feb. 28, 2008. (AP Photo/Phelan M. Ebenhack) Google's new health record-sharing service has privacy advocates' hearts racing. But the benefits outweigh the risks, both in costs and potential lives saved, James Gibney argues in the Atlantic. Ready access to personal health records could prevent medical errors like incorrectly prescribed meds while saving billions in related costs. Hacking is less of a hazard to patient privacy than plain old carelessness, and federal and state health care contractors and agencies have a poor privacy track record anyway. "Google is arguably better equipped to prevent such lapses," writes Gibney, "and more fundamentally interested in doing so, since breaches would undermine public confidence in the company and might expose it to greater regulation." Read These Next He survived 43 days in a 'most dangerous' Australian desert. It's the most modern of insults: Clanker. An NFL kicker just raised the bar for his fellow kickers. How a Florida university's millions went to a cam girl. Report an error