The nation's largest HMO, Kaiser Permanente, will conduct a pilot to link its health records system to Microsoft's consumer health storage platform, HealthVault. Microsoft has repeatedly said that it doesn't really need to make an acquisition to beef up its online ad business because it plans to create and dominate in new markets besides search -- healthcare being one of them. This shows that Microsoft is putting itself in position to do just that. A story by the AP, said that the pilot will at first be limited to Kaiser employees who volunteer to have their records transferred into HealthVault. But the plan is to open this service up to Kaiser's 8.7 million members later this year.
Interestingly, Anna-Lisa Silvestre, vice president of online services at Kaiser, said that more than 2 million Kaiser members are already using Kaiser's own online health records service, My Health Manager. But by outsourcing this to Microsoft, the HMO believes it will dramatically expand the available tools for online record keeping. The Microsoft platform currently offers about 30 tools for consumers. For instance, Microsoft offers a widget for Vista for tracking a patient's weight and supports data uploads from a host of devices (blood glucose monitors, blood pressure monitors, body-weight scales).
Microsoft is battling it out with Google for this new market. One question is the security of health records. While Microsoft and Google both adhere to federal standards for data exchange and include lots of other protection, a single database with so much private info can be an awfully tempting target for a hacker. Microsoft's success (as well as Google's) will come down to how much people trust the company to secure their personal info.
Given that most people get their healthcare insurance through their employer, the enterprise may have to eventually weigh in on supporting these online services such as which ones to support, guidelines and policies for their use by employees and verification of security methods by service providers such as Microsoft or Google. In fact, it may be in the enterprise's best interests to do just that. Many employees may not be savvy enough to protect themselves. In the long run, any increase in insurance costs associated with online health records (or identity theft or insurance swindles) will be passed onto corporate America.
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