Aetna launches health information search site for up to 1.5M employees

Aetna Inc. launched a Web-based search site on Wednesday that allows customers to generate information about disease risks, medical costs, and local doctors using their electronic health records.

Aetna's SmartSource search site would ramp up the way electronic health information is used, even as privacy concerns rise with an increased interest among companies to find new applications for electronic health records.

SmartSource crunches data such as gender, age, ZIP code, employer, health care plan and information from the customer's personal health records.

The search engine generates information tailored to individuals about diseases and medical conditions, treatments, health care costs and local health care providers.

Aetna will make the search engine available as a pilot program this year to between 20 and 25 employers with up to 1.5 million eligible employees, and make the service available to more customers next year.

Healthline Networks, a privately held San Francisco-based health search engine that was founded in 1999 as YourDoctor.com, is providing the technology platform for Aetna's search engine.

The Hartford-based insurer is banking on strong interest in Web-based health information and the drive to make patients better informed and in charge of their own health care.

But privacy advocates have been wary about electronic health records, warning about possible security breaches even though insurers insist information is secure.

Aetna officials said the Web site uses encryption standards similar to the banking industry and access to its Web site takes customers to Healthline's secure site.

Mohit Ghose, a spokesman for America's Health Insurance Plans, a trade group of 1,300 health insurance plans, said insurance customers are protected by many safeguards, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, commonly called HIPAA, and state privacy laws.

But Sue Blevins, president of the Institute for Health Freedom in Washington, D.C., said the new ways health records are used raises concerns. For example, customers should be notified when their health information is transferred, whether from Aetna to Healthline Networks or other companies, she said.

Blevins also said it's not clear that HIPAA covers companies that store electronic records, and that the federal law may need to be updated.

Google Inc. announced last month it will begin storing medical records of a few thousand people. The service is not yet available publicly. And Microsoft Corp. last year introduced a service called HealthVault that manages health information.

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On the Net:

http://www.aetna.com

http://www.healthline.com