Microsoft Rolls Out Personal Health Records

From the New York Times:

Microsoft is starting its long-anticipated drive into the consumer health care market by offering free personal health records (PHRs) on the Web and pursuing a strategy that borrows from the company’s successful formula in personal computer software.

The move by Microsoft, which is called HealthVault and was announced today in Washington, comes after two years spent building its team, expertise and technology. In recent months, Microsoft managers have met with many potential partners including hospitals, disease-prevention organizations and health care companies.

The organizations that have signed up for HealthVault projects with Microsoft include the American Heart Association, Johnson & Johnson LifeScan, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, the Mayo Clinic and MedStar Health, a network of seven hospitals in the Baltimore-Washington region.The partner strategy is a page from Microsoft’s old playbook. Convincing other companies to build upon its technology, and then helping them do it, was a major reason Windows became the dominant personal computer operating system.

“The value of what we’re doing will go up rapidly as we get more partners,” said Peter Neupert, the vice president in charge of Microsoft’s health group.

The company’s consumer health offering includes a personal health record, as well as Internet search tailored for health queries, under the name Microsoft HealthVault (www.healthvault.com).

The personal information, Microsoft said, will be stored in a secure, encrypted database. Its privacy controls, the company said, are set entirely by the individual, including what information goes in and who gets to see it. The HealthVault searches are conducted anonymously, Microsoft said, and will not be linked to any personal information in a HealthVault personal health record.

Firm tries again with personal health records

Excerpt from IBJ.com:

Even though Google Inc. has given up on the business of electronic personal health records, Fort Wayne-based NoMoreClipboard.com is launching a new service it thinks will crack open the market.

The company’s latest service, called cc:Me, gives patients a free and secure web-based account that can receive their electronic medical records from any other system and also can receive new records from any electronic medical record system their doctor or hospital happens to use.

“One of the barriers to widespread consumer adoption of portable personal health records has been the difficulty of populating a PHR with existing clinical data,” said NoMoreClipboard.com President Jeff Donnell. “cc:Me simplifies the exchange of health information in an industry-standard format that is interoperable with any certified electronic health record system used by physicians and hospitals, with no need for integration.”

For doctors—especially those struggling to meet the standard for “meaningful use” of electronic medical record set by the federal Medicare program in 2009—the service might be a shortcut to compliance.

For example, the Medicare rules require doctors to send their patients electronically—and securely, so regular e-mail accounts won’t do—a “Continuity of Care Document” to keep the patients engaged in their care.

Doctors who fail to meet this and other requirements will miss out on Medicare bonus payments the next two years. And after that, doctors not using electronic medical records will get their payments from Medicare clipped by a percentage point or two.

NoMoreClipboard.com is also pitching its new product to vendors of electronic medical record systems, saying cc:me can engage patients without the vendors' needing to also sell an expensive “interface solution.”

Connectyx Technologies Announces Immediate Access to Patient Health Records Through Blue Button(R)

Excerpt from Market Watch:

Connectyx Technologies Holdings Group, Inc. (pinksheets:CTYX) ("Connectyx"), www.connectyx.com , manufacturer and distributor of the MedFlash(R), a Personal Health and Wellness Management System (ePHM) designed for maintaining personal health records (PHR), announced today that the company has been approved by the Veterans administration to utilize the VA's enhanced Blue Button(R) initiative for downloading personal medical records. The MedFlash utility in conjunction with this rapidly expanding "Blue Button" utility will enable MedFlash subscribers who access their personal medical records through MedFlash to have more options which will make it possible for them to download, print, and share their information as part of their MedFlash membership. The downloadable data can be in a text file or as an enhanced PDF, which then can be shared as part of their MedFlash Personal Health Profile with first responders or health care professionals through the MedFlash "Blue Button(R)" link. Self-entered data elements currently available for download include:

        --  Allergies and Adverse Reactions (pharmaceutical allergies and physical             allergies)         --  Demographic Information         --  Emergency Contact Information         --  Family Health History (Self and Relatives)         --  Health Care Providers         --  Health Data (i.e. blood sugar, blood pressure, weight, etc.)         --  Health Insurance         --  Immunizations         --  Lab and Test Results         --  Medical Conditions and Personal Medical History         --  Medications, Herbals, and Supplements         --  Treatment Facilities         --  Vitals and Readings          

In August 2010, the President of the United States announced the Blue Button initiative which would offer patients one-click access to all of their personal healthcare data. The Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA) developed the program with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Department of Defense (DOD) and the Markle Foundation's Consumer Engagement Workgroup. Recently, the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology conducted a conference announcing to health information technology vendors that they should "set data free," enabling patients to have secure and easy access to their personal health records information through Blue Button.

How To Fix The Personal Health Record Mess

Excerpt from InformationWeek:

How many patients have taken on the project of digitizing their personal health records? My guess is not many. Most people who have bothered to collect and manage their healthcare information are more likely to have a large box somewhere at home stuffed with lab reports, hospital discharge instructions, and receipts for care, but have not bothered to take the next step.

Of course, there are small and large vendors out there who can help. And some health insurers and employers also offer assistance through consortium groups like Dossia. However, a lot that information is derived from claims data, which doesn't always provide a complete picture of the patient either. Sometimes, the data suggests that blood work was done, for instance, but in fact it was ordered and paid for, but no results exist in the file.

Under the HITECH Act and HIPPA regulations, clinicians are supposed to offer patient copies or electronic access to their medical data, which could be used to populate a PHR. But for the most part, that's being achieved through patient portals. And while portals can be convenient for patients, unless the individual gets all his or her care from one affiliated group of providers--like a Kaiser Permanente, for example--it's still unlikely that the patient information will be complete.

So, what are patients to do if they want to create and manage their own complete e-health record? Too often it requires they supplement information already available in PDFs or images of scanned documents with a mish mash of assorted information from paper records. That scattered collection of information then has to be manually entered into the e-PHR. That's a lot of work. And if the patient is elderly or suffers from a serious illness that's driving him or her to gather all the information in one place, it may be too much.

Saraki Promises Women Access to Personal Health Records

Excerpt from ThisDayLive.com:

Wife of former Kwara State governor and founder of The Wellbeing Founda-tion Africa (WBF Africa), a maternal and newborn health charity, Mrs. Toyin Saraki, has promised to ensure that 5.3million women across Africa had access to personal health records by 2015.

Saraki said: “I myself lost a child and nearly died in childbirth. For this reason, I am committed to spending the last 19 years of my life, the age of my surviving child, to find a solution to halt these needless deaths.”

Speaking during an event by Every Woman Every Child, which was hosted by Ray Chambers at the Grand Hyatt, New York, Saraki said over 1,500 women have died in childbirth. She said her Foundation was determined to ensure that every African woman had a personal health record (phr), which would ensure that health information were accessed to reduce maternal and child mortality rate as well as achieve the MDG 4 and 5 targets.

She said in the next four years, the Foundation would be focusing on how to empower women to take control of their maternal health by giving every woman in Nigeria her own personal health record.

“Today, 290,000 women have records. By 2015 we want every woman in Nigeria, 5.3 million women, to have their own personal health record, 1/4 of number of women on the continent, and from there the rest of Africa. Can you imagine the number of lives this would save?