Storage of the Seed Biometric: A Case for National Healthcare

At present, insurance forms, healthcare company, doctor and hospital records are separated by data barriers. In many instances, healthcare records are on paper. Especially smaller doctors offices. The point at which the data is acquired, whether medical or - perhaps the place where you would go to do a biometric profile, are usually the issue. And the types of barriers that exist cost lives, and give us all kinds of strange situations in which we have sixteen different identities, fifty passwords, and weeks to get medical records transferred to a new doctor. It doesn't matter if we're in the E/R or if we're trying to code up the lock for our new Mercedes, we're still dealing with data in different silos.

The newer format data tend to follow newer procedures, with readily accessible data formats. Radiology Data, for example, is a dataset that is common for many doctors to be able to see online. XRays, MRI, etc.

The older data, less so. Newer tests such as genetic sequencing would likely be readily available, HiPAA act, or not - if such a set of data were stored or administered in the private sector.

And one in which your private information is for sale to the highest bidder.

In addition to the potential for DNA sequencing (for which the structure of teh deal would amount to private companies predicting and reporting to several private entities such things as propensity for madness, heart attack, stroke, etc. ) there is another aspect of your medical record that if we are structuring the data properly - should exist in the file. A seed biometric.

Biometric authentication is just on the horizon, for most people. Voiceprints are a good example. Using only your voice, you can unlock doors - or, as my partner has done - gain access (he wrote a system that the Consulates use, to let the Ambassadors call in - they give their voiceprint, and they can use Consulate lines).

Of course, there's fingerprint - and also retinal patterns. DNA sequences seem to be on the horizon.

Do you want Experian or some other credit reporting agency to store this information for you?

Anyone who stores the seed biometric would have access to your files.Perhaps to your car, home.

Although its true that if we get the file formats and information updated and searchable - so that they can talk to each other... the policy making arm of the federal government in connection with the realtime data feeds coming from this setup - would be able to spot readily available trends, such as which drugs are working, or whats causing health crises - ex. say, mercury in the air in a particular region .. or a spike in the number of cases of cancer in a particular industrial area. Correlating to the EPA, and FDA, meaningful code enforcement can be delivered. As it stands, there are years of lag time involved by which time quack medicine generally disappears and polluters have covered their tracks.

The problem of storing the seed biometric from someone's DNA, Voice, Retina, or other .. seems to be pretty straightforward as one in which we would never outsource. Just as we would never outsource our passports to a private corporation in Dubai.

So, a National Healthcare framework would allow file structures that could are interoperable - spotting longterm trends. And it will also be able to support storage of the seed biometric. Would this sound right?

Or did we want a major Credit Reporting Agency to do it for us?