The candidates' books and speeches show us it is ok to be co-creators of our personal health and wellness narratives, controllers of our own health data and information, partners in the global healthcare conversation. Now we just need someone to give us the virtual application that will allow us to integrate personal health data into our daily narratives - offline. It's about living well in the real world, after all.

In the health information tech and policy world, it's all about information now, gluts of it, gazillions of web-pages worth. But applications that allow us to take the next step are still missing - there's no single "killer app" that lets consumers pull relevant data and action items from communities created around healthcare data stored in various systems. And there's certainly no system, yet, that combines subjective personal health input of patients with ‘objective' clinical data from physicians.
Even if substantial changes in healthcare policy don't happen in 2009, the next President will certainly have his or her hands full regulating the newly burgeoning personal health record industry. Soon, though, we'll see entrepreneurial tech companies emerge as the new ambassadors of consumer-centric health care. They'll act as next generation thought leaders holding out hands and offering subscription sAAs (software as a service) models, imploring us to process, combine, and form communities of action around our personal wellness data.

And of course, let's look at this without the colored contacts - tech-savvy startups are looking at how to make money aggregating our data, charging us to use the service (like the bank safety deposit box of old) and/or selling us targeted ads. Take a look at companies participating in the Health 2.0 movement for specific examples.
Candidate staffers' take note: When we read about your candidate creating a personal health record via Microsoft HealthVault, Google Health, or any other electronic health record systems available to consumers, and then posting that record online, that's when we'll really be ready for a debate about the utility, security, privacy, and safety of health care data in the dawning e-health age.

Until then, you're all still hiding under makeup. Take it off, and then we can talk about how to save health care.