ZibdyHealth Sub-Optimal Data Exchange Standards

Reformers in the health care field, quite properly, emphasize new payment models and culture changes to drive improvements in outcomes. But we can’t ignore the barriers that current technology puts in the way of well-meaning reformers. This article discusses one of the many companies offering a patient health record (PHR) and the ways they’ve adapted to a very flawed model for data storage and exchange.

I had the honor to be contacted by Dr. Hirdey Bhathal, CEO/Founder of ZibdyHealth. Like many companies angling to develop a market for PHRs, ZibdyHealth offers a wide range of services to patients. Unlike, say, Google Health (of blessed memory) or Microsoft HealthVault, ZibdyHealth doesn’t just aspire to store your data, but to offer additional services that make it intensely valuable to you. Charts and visualizations. for instance, will let you see your progress with laboratory and device data over time. They call this a “Smart HIE.” I’ll look a bit at what they offer, and then at the broken model for data exchange that they had to overcome in the health care industry.

The ZibdyHealth application

Setting up an account with ZibdyHealth is as easy as joining Facebook. Once you’re there, you can create health information manually. The company is working with fitness device makers to allow automatic uploads of device data, which can then be saved as a standard Continuity of Care Document (CCD) and offered to doctors...