You will be presented with the full text of a biomedical research paper. Please write an abstract for this paper. Your response should include the abstract and no additional text.

Paper text:
in the may issue of genome medicine , belmont and mcguire   make the case for a ' uniform electronic health record ' ( ehr ) that includes both genotype and phenotype information . by uniform they mean a single data standard across different ehr databases and user interfaces , rather than a single database or a single user interface ( this has been confirmed by personal communication with the authors ) .
it is certainly true that a clearer picture of a patient 's health is possible when their genotype data are combined with phenotype data .
the quantity and quality of these data are improving , along with the analytical tools that allow us to interpret them .
patients , clinicians and researchers can all benefit from a better understanding of these data , and belmont and mcguire 's article   describes efforts in europe and the usa to unify the datasets .
however , other parties that would benefit from better understanding include public health officials , government bureaucrats , insurance companies and employers . and
in some cases , there are conflicts of interest ; for example , an insurance company could use genetic information to raise premiums or deny cover , whereas a patient might use the same information to seek increased cover when they learn of the risk for future diseases .
there are ways to solve the conflicts of interest that can arise from the use and availability of patient data .
first , as belmont and mcguire   describe , efforts such as the personal genome project   allow patients to opt in to fully disclose their genetic information for the benefit of researchers .
patientslikeme.com   has an openness policy alongside their privacy policy so that participants can agree to share all their data , and tens of thousands of people from around the world have already agreed to do so .
the value to researchers is currently limited because the data are self - submitted rather than independently verified , but the proof that patients are willing to share their personal information is there .
the principle must still stand , however , that data sharing begins with and is controlled by the patient .
this favors a single personal health record ( phr ) as a database rather than a single electronic health record .
phrs are records owned and controlled by the patient , as opposed to ehrs , which are owned and controlled by health care practitioners .
useful data standards for phr and ehr communication should be expanded to fit the genomic vision that belmont and mcguire   outline . in particular , the continuity of care record ( ccr ) data format is the digital equivalent of a referral letter from one clinician to another about a patient .
it is supported by phr providers such as google health and microsoft healthvault ; pharmacies such as walgreens and cvs ; and providers such as minuteclinic .
the department of health and human services at the national cancer institute unveiled a standard earlier this year for family history .
de - identification is a better term than anonymization because the latter implies a binary process , which is misleading , while the former accurately conveys a spectrum .
we know that de - identification algorithms are already in use when the public interest demands phenotype sharing but patient consent is not possible or practicable .
examples include notifiable disease surveillance , public health planning and large - scale research . in these cases , looking after the patient 's privacy requires measures that ensure they can not be identified through illicit use of those data .
illicit patient re - identification has three sources of risk : the research team , all other people who have access to these data and finally the inherent readability of the data itself . building a single system to be accessed by hundreds or thousands of researchers across tens or hundreds of projects
such systems can therefore never be adequately private . what might work , when public interest demands but consent is not possible , are schemes that separately copy just the minimum of phenotype and genotype data from various health management systems for a specific group of vetted researchers working within a highly protective legal context .
any change in project purpose would necessitate a re - assessment of the prevailing risks .
a system in which highly vetted organizations were permitted to collect and link minimal data from all its various sources would be ideal .
in addition , the architecture for a single ehr or phr is not a simple one .
it is desirable and correct to view all the relevant data at the time of making a clinical decision or coming to a research conclusion .
however , that does not mean all the data should be viewable . for the person viewing the data , their storage in a single place
but for the people whose data are viewed , such a data warehouse is ripe for abuse .
citizens have expressed their distrust of such systems on many occasions , and security experts have repeatedly pointed out the risks of data warehouses .
federated architectures , where data are spread across multiple sites and queried as needed , have been deployed   and are made easier by new approaches , such as service - oriented architecture .
and knowing how much protection to put in place is made easier by couching privacy concerns in terms of the risk of illicit patient re - identification .
all of the above discussion is not to say that a single ehr is a bad idea .
belmont and mcguire   make a good case for the need to unify data in the service of laudable aims , including providing good patient care and advancing medical research .
however , just because something can be done does not mean that it should be done , and in health care it is patients who should decide what should be done .
they will be the most affected by privacy breaches , so they must be the ones who decide which of the benefits to take advantage of .
the good news is that mature technologies exist that do put patients in control . as professionals we need to earn their trust by using these technologies when we ask for data sharing that makes our jobs easier .
ma is the ceo of patients know best , a company that makes and sells personal health record software .
rn is the ceo of sapior , a company that makes and sells de - identification software for the private sharing of health data .
ma wrote the sections on personal health records and rn wrote those on de - identification .
there is value to patients , clinicians and researchers from having a single electronic health record data standard that allows an integrated view , including genotype and phenotype data . 
 however , it is important that this integrated view of the data is not created through a single database because privacy breaches increase with the number of users , and such breaches are more likely with a single data warehouse . 
 furthermore , a single user interface should be avoided because each end user requires a different user interface . 
 finally , data sharing must be controlled by the patient , not the other end users of the data . 
 a preferable alternative is a federated architecture , which allows data to be stored in multiple institutions and shared on a need - to - know basis . 
 the data sharing raises questions of ownership and stewardship that require social and political answers , as well as consideration of the clinical and scientific benefits .