Thanks to Becky LaPlant at the Blandin Foundation for sending me an update on Governor Tim Pawlenty’s announcement on online access to health care records. According to Minnesota Public Radio, he announced that every state employee would have online access to their own so-called personal health portfolio by 2009, and he hopes that everyone in Minnesota could have the same access by 2011.

The goal is to save money for staff, medical staff and the state. Governor Pawlenty said it would cost about $600,000 for the state to create the secure Web site.

I have three questions.

First and not surprisingly given the nature of this blog… Will we also have broadband across the state to make sure that we can access the records from home, the office, the hospital and handheld devices where applicable? We don’t need a ton of bandwidth for shot records – but we might for x-rays of a broken angle.

The second question… Has the State looked at the new Google Health tool? What’s funny is that I just happened to look into it for another blog last night. In short, Google has created a system that sounds an awful lot like and is offering for free. Maybe that’s a place where the State can start looking.

Finally, Governor Pawlenty said that we can look into this because the state employee health plan is doing better than expected. My husband works for the State, so as an interested party I’d like to suggest that we go with Google and dole the $600,000 on reduced co-pays! (Starting with covering braces for kids would be great!)