On February 20, Google and The Cleveland Clinic announced that they were collaborating on an electronic personal health record (PHR).  There are plans to enroll 1500-10,000 of the Clinic’s patients to use the pilot version of Google’s password protected online medical record system.

A Cleveland Clinic press release explained the new project “will test secure exchange of patient medical record data such as prescriptions, conditions and allergies between their Cleveland Clinic PHR to a secure Google profile in a live clinical delivery setting.”

The Cleveland Clinic view this partnership as a strategic step to help create national access to electronic medical records for free, putting the power and the responsibility back in the patients hands.