Say what?

The following press release crossed the wire this morning:

SOURCE: Aperture Health, Inc. (flexSCAN, Inc.)
Jun 12, 2008 08:00 ET

Aperture Health Announces Sweepstakes

MISSION VIEJO, CA–(Marketwire – June 12, 2008) – Aperture Health, Inc. (OTCBB: APRE) announced today that it will raffle off its wellness360 Wellness RV to one of its lucky members. Tom Banks, founder and CEO, stated that the RV “is beautiful and will be ideal for family vacations.” Members will receive one (1) entry in the Road-to-Wellness sweepstakes for every friend they invite to become members of wellness360.com. There’s no cost to enter. Entries must be received by August 31, 2008 for the September 15, 2008 drawing. Visit the website for the sweepstakes Official Rules. Members also earn ten (10) points for every invitation sent. Banks added, “We think everyone should join wellness360. It’s easy and you will earn points that are redeemable for cash. Our unique proposition is that you get paid to get healthy and you may even win a $40,000 RV.”

About Aperture Health, Inc.

Aperture Health generates revenues from advertisers by providing highly granular health and wellness targeting. Aperture Health never divulges individual information to advertisers, sponsors, employers or any third parties and they back their promise with a $1 million Privacy Guarantee. wellness360™ empowers people to take action with their health and wellness with a robust suite of online services including; diet and fitness management tools, research tools to stay informed on issues related to their personal health and wellness needs and an online medical resource library and state-of-the-art search engine. More importantly, wellness360.com also allows individuals to electronically store their personal health records as well as all their “paper” medical records from their doctors. As an added benefit, members can create a wellness360’s Emergency Medical Record enabling emergency responders to quickly and easily dispatch key medical information to emergency personnel.

That’s right, Aperture Health, a PHR company, is giving away a $40,000 RV (photos here), to drum up referrals to its advertising-supported product. Yes, the service relies on ads based on patient-entered personal health information, with a promise of 33 percent cash back to users.

The fact that virtually no consumer is taking the time to enter data into any sort of PHR notwithstanding, this ought to raise hackles of privacy hawks everywhere.

As I type this, I’m in Washington, listening to Paul Wallace, M.D., of Kaiser Permanente speak to the 7th Annual Information Therapy Conference about patient-centered care and health IT. He just came out with a line that fits pretty perfectly right here: “I would argue that no consumer has ever had a hand in developing consumer-directed healthcare.”

For the record, Aperture stock closed at 6 cents a share today.