Microsoft Beats Google To Online Health Records With HealthVault

October 4th, 2007 at 11:08 am

interesting how they put the name “vault” right into the name to try to convey security.

October 4th, 2007 at 11:24 am

The reason that google is behind is because they realize that health information does not mesh well with targeted advertising. I would venture to guess that google’s test run to show targeted drug ads to customers who have certain ailments in their health history drew a backlash from test groups - it crosses the line of privacy so much that people won’t even let Google do it. The better model is to have a paid subscription system, free of ads, that is included as part of any health insurance package. The increase in preventative care (and reduction in benefits payouts) would more than offset the cost of maintaining such a service.

October 4th, 2007 at 11:30 am

I’ll let my doctor maintain those records. The last thing I need is for potential employers, insurance companies, salesman, hackers, etc to peruse through my health situation.

October 4th, 2007 at 11:35 am

XD Oh my, two Ed’s!

October 4th, 2007 at 11:40 am

For once I wanted to try MS product and the first thing it did after I signed up was send an Email Verification to my Hotmail account and guess what? Hotmail thinks is a junk mail. The product hopefully is not.

October 4th, 2007 at 11:57 am

Atlast I can see Microsoft thinking beyond the IT business.. they were only into software and then hardware Pioneers in it.. now in health(ware) Hope they do the same way as they did in the IT industry

October 4th, 2007 at 12:08 pm

Nice idea, but badly designed, it is not user friendly. They should make it an easy interface to enter the details. Initially a lot of things have to be done manually, so they should give an option for that. They are trying to enter into too many things before getting ready.

October 4th, 2007 at 1:21 pm

These comments are retarded. Microsoft spends more money on security than any other software company in the world, and they do a damn good job for the most part.

October 4th, 2007 at 1:32 pm

Some implicit assumptions that everyone always takes for granted:

Better information=Better health (if that was the case the existence of Google should have already solved our problems–I’m pretty sure human behaviour plays a factor in health outcomes)

Early treatment of symptoms=Better health (More treatment does not always result in better health–for example take antibiotics and the ‘common cold’ a good case in point where it actually result in no difference, more cost and antibiotic resistance)

IT is definitely needed but it just ain’t that simple…

October 4th, 2007 at 1:36 pm

There are a wide variety of proposals coming out to create a centralized data store of personal health records. A similar project soon to be offered to all employees of Intel, At&T, Walmart and a host of other Fortune 500 companies is http://www.dossia.org/ This initiative is spearheaded by the participating companies as means of driving lower healthcare costs first and foremost. Privacy seems to be a secondary problem. To Dossia’s credit, they have canned their old software implementation and moved to an open source project hosted at http://www.indivohealth.org/ I think this is one instance where the open source community can drive the issue of consumer privacy and protection as it no longer is a question of “if”, but rather “when” and “how” these systems will be implemented.

October 4th, 2007 at 2:03 pm

Excellent. What a great service by Microsoft. Job well done giving it to the 800 pound gorilla.

October 4th, 2007 at 2:26 pm

To be honest, I’m pretty impressed with what MS has done here so far. It’s just a shame that too many idiots with a default opinion on any MS offering post on these boards!

October 4th, 2007 at 2:51 pm

just read the same news in mashable….anyways security is a big concern…adding words like “vault” won’t help
http://vidsonly.blogspot.com

October 4th, 2007 at 4:10 pm

This is a pipe dream IMO. People like me are very wary of putting my medical records all in 1 place for privacy reasons. It’s bad enough that if I apply for individual health insurance, there is a chance that my application data could get into a national database. I will never use a service like this, ever.

October 4th, 2007 at 4:53 pm

After clicking three levels down and wading through the privacy policy the following item didn’t bring me comfort…

“Microsoft may access and/or disclose your personal information if we believe such action is necessary to: (a) comply with the law or legal process served on Microsoft; (b) protect and defend the rights or property of Microsoft (including the enforcement of our agreements); or (c) act in urgent circumstances to protect the personal safety and welfare of users of Microsoft services or members of the public.”

In particular, doesn’t (b) mean that Microsoft would use your information for whatever reason? All they need is an agreement. Doesn’t sound like much of a vault for my most personal information.

October 4th, 2007 at 6:55 pm

I proposed something like this back in 1995 to Prudential Group Insurance (nonexistent anymore) but for internal use only. Also, I was proposing it as a tool for their internal HMO and as an operational efficiency tool. I was told: “THIS WILL NEVER BE ONLINE”.

They have some big obstacles to overcome, but I am glad it is live … after how many year?

October 4th, 2007 at 10:12 pm

In regards to Canadian MD:

Personalized health records are a major step forward in creating value for the patient (although I’m not ratifying MS’s first attempt at it). Proper data management is desperately needed in the health industry, and when a good solution is implemented patients will be much better served. I couldn’t disagree more with your dismissals of key health paradigms.

Early treatment of symptoms=Better health. This is true for many key diseases; think cancer, atherosclerosis, cardiac issues, diabetes, etc. Your example of anti-biotics for the common cold is nonsense. This reflects more of MD’s inability to understand the difference between viruses and bacteria and/or understand the therapeutics they prescribe.

Better information=Better health. This is also very true for many key diseases (mainly for the same diagnostic reasons above). Further, if we had more information about human biology (think biomarkers), we would be much better at designing and administering therapeutics.

Not to be too argumentative, but the general public puts a lot of weight on MDs opinion of health care…
(btw. Canada should be ashamed for having a National health-care system, yet still relying so heavily on non-digital forms of record keeping.).

October 5th, 2007 at 12:08 am

Social Networking for Sick People?
Wasn’t there some site doing that.

October 5th, 2007 at 5:43 am

Oh dear, M$ will reap billions just for the sole value of the database for spammers!
Now they know for sure who to send that viagra ad!

Let me strenghten my password to start entering my records there!

HAHAHAHAH

Retards!

October 5th, 2007 at 11:40 am

Looks like my community of people with diabetes is EXTREMELY SKEPTICAL. We would actually be the people who most need a service like this, to record our glucose data, but most said they don’t trust Microsoft to A) make software that works and isn’t buggy and a security risk and B) to provide a service that isn’t primarily about making money for them and their partners.

See some slightly more aggressively worded reactions here:
http://www.diabetesmine.com/20.....wants.html

October 6th, 2007 at 1:49 pm

I agree. Security will be the biggest barrier initially, which will cause slower adoption but I guess people will eventually start using it the way they started using online banking, emails to share their private information sitting on yahoo, google, msn servers, familty photos on free websites. It is funny that people trust their doctor’s small clinic staff with limited resources and technology to protect their private information. Very few of us really know how secure is our information in these small clinics and to which company they have outsourced to maintain it. Like or not, there is a greater potential for small clinics to start using this kind of services to reduce their IT cost without our knwoledge. Do you think anyone of us will know if the labs and clinics start using these services one day? In fact of the leading elecronic medical record company is already on board with MS. I won’t be surprised if my doctor is using this company to maintian my medical records in their back office.

Besides all that, gov. is already pushing big time for centralized electronic medical records in order to reduce the healthcare cost wher 60-70% cost is associated with administrative overhead. Many insurance companies have already implemented similar systems and are sharing medicals records with health care providers and other insurnace companies without the knowledge of a common person like me and you. Right now these initiaves are small, fragmented and not well coordinated. Moreover because of compliance issues and fears, very few companies want to play in this space. I think only big players like MS, Google, Oracle, IBM etc. have the resources and know how to build this kind of systems and sustain them.

October 11th, 2007 at 12:46 pm

Electronic records better than these have been available from health plans for a while. just go to Aetna.com or myUHC.com or Humana.com if you are a plan member. Usage of such records is