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Microsoft’s HealthVault: User Manual = C-, Strategy to Create a New Ecosystem = A

Would you like to have the experience of being parachuted into a deep forest with no map of where you are or clues about how to get out?  If so, I suggest that you go directly to Microsoft’s new PHR at www.healthvault.com and just TRY to figure out where you are or where you’re headed.

Initial confusion put aside, I think HealthVault is strategically brilliant.  While I’d give Microsoft a C- for explaining HealthVault (HV), I’ll give them an A for laying the strategy and foundation for what can become an extremely powerful platform for the appropriate, free flow of interoperable and transportable personal health information (I’ve chosen my words carefully here).

Here are four initial impressions about HealthVault — please comment as I’m still trying to figure out myself exactly what HV is and isn’t.

1) HV is Confusing.  What is it?

I’ve spent several hours trying to understand HV.  Don’t make the same mistakes I made:

  • Don’t go directly to the HealthVault website.  You will find yourself in the middle of the forest with no map to guide you.  You’ll see very little of the PHR repository functionality (which is the true power of HV) and you will see a lot of search functionality (which is OK but not unique).
  • Don’t go to the initial articles reporting on HealthVault.  The coverage has been superficial — “Andersen, we’re here on the front lines reporting on HealthVault.  There’s a bunch of trees here.  Back to you, Andersen.” 
  • Don’t go directly to the blogosphere (with some exceptions noted below).  You’ll see many commentaries reporting on the existence of HV, but few yet that discuss its potential.  You’ll also see a lot of general hate mongering about Microsoft. 

DO go directly to Microsoft’s website and read the fact sheet, FAQ,press release, and partner quote sheet.   Beware:  there’s a ton of other distracting information on the Microsoft website, much of it aimed at developers for HV.

Why read the partner quote sheet?  By itself, HealthVault is pretty useless; HV is a platform.  The success or failure of HV ultimately is going to depend on the strength of the 40+ partner applications that plug in to HV. The initial list of partners is impressive.

Among the dozens of writings on HV, here are a few that I found most useful:

  • Microsoft offers free HealthVault for patients’ records
  • HealthBlog : Microsoft HealthVault: A Place to Search, Store and Connect Health Information for You and Your Family
  • Yasnoff on eHealth » HealthVault – A Step in the Right Direction
  • Matthew Holt’s Podcast Interview with Glen Tullman, CEO, Allscripts
  • Microsoft Launches ‘HealthVault’ Records-Storage Site – News and Analysis by PC Magazine
  • Microsoft Rolls Out Personal Health Records – New York Times
  •  

    2) A Narrow View — It’s a PHR Platform

    Buried deep in its website is Microsoft’s FAQ describing HealthVault:

    Q:  What is HealthVault?

    A:  Microsoft® HealthVault is a new personal health technology platform that lets you gather, store and share health information online. With HealthVault, users control their own health records, so they can privately share their health information with family, friends and healthcare professionals, and have access to trustworthy online health management tools.

    Microsoft’s FAQ says that “HealthVault is not a personal health record (PHR)”.  At first I found this explanation confusing, but it’s technically correct.  The HV user interface is very thin.  A more accurate label is that HV is a PHR platform or a PHR data repository.  It’s simply a place to store your health information.

    Several of Microsoft’s application partners are PHR companies, e.g., CapMed, Medem, the ActiveHealth PHR.  These PHR companies will provide the UI to HV; these (and other applications) will be the front door to the “bank” that somewhere inside contains the “vault” that is HV.

    3) A Somewhat Broader View — HV is a Platform for Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM) Data

    The telehealth community should be jumping for joy over HV.  RPM devices and services have mostly existed as niche applications.  The HV platform legitimizes the value of RPM data and lays the foundation for RPM data becoming mainstream.  I’ll write more about this later.

    4) An Even Broader View — HV Begins to Create a New Ecosystem for the Appropriate, Free Flow of Interoperable and Transportable Personal Health Information (PHI)

    Many of the headlines about HV have focused on Microsoft upstaging Google. These headlines miss the point — this really isn’t about Microsoft vs. Google.

    It’s about creating a new business ecosystem based on the appropriate (honoring privacy and security) free flow of interoperable and transportable personal health information (PHI) — something that doesn’t exist today. 

    Go back 30 years and think about creating a new market for faxes — one fax machine is useless; two allow for a point to point connection; eventually you reach a tipping point and create a network effect in the market.

    Today, despite the fact that there are something like 200 PHR vendors in the marketplace, there is very little market for PHRs or more broadly for the free flow of PHI.

    HV promises to change all this. This really isn’t about competition between Microsoft and Google, it’s much more about collaboration among Microsoft, Microsoft’s 40+ application vendors, Google and and many others collectively working to create a new ecosystem based on free flow of PHI.  This can occur because:

    a) HV truly appears to be about interopable and transportable PHI.  From the FAQ:

    Q:  What standards does HealthVault support?

    A:  HealthVault automatically imports and exports between standards that are meaningful in the healthcare industry, such as WC3 Extensible Markup Language, HL7 Continuity of Care Document, ASTM Continuity of Care Record, Clinical Document Architecture and Common Connectivity Device. As well, the HealthVault API is accessible from any modern programming environment, including but not limited to Microsoft .NET, Win32®, Java, PHP and more. It’s important to note that we’ve built a platform that can be adapted to work with any health data standard. We’re inclusive. In the future, we anticipate being able to communicate with any widely used health information protocol.

    In a previous blog posting about GoogleHealth, I noted that Google also seems to commited to interoperability and transportability of PHI.  Thus, data should be able to flow freely between HV and Google Health, just as one manufacturer’s fax machine can transmit to another manufacturer’s fax machine.  Sure, at one level Microsoft and Google will compete, but more importantly it’s about collectively creating a new ecosystem.

    b) HV brings an impressive list of 40+ application partners to the table on day 1.  Again, take a look at the partner quote sheet referenced above — it’s an impressive and committed group.  As more partners join the network, the value of the network will increase exponentially.

    These are just initial reactions to what I believe will be a long and interesting dialogue about the potential of HV.  I welcome your thoughts.

    This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License. Feel free to republish this post with attribution.

    12 Comments

    1. Mark Singh MD on October 5, 2007 at 10:23 pm

      Great explanation. Microsoft as you said, did a poor job in explaining HealthVault.

      I had more time to look at Microsoft’s HealthVault. As I mentioned on my blog, after creating my own personal account, I was disappointed by the sparseness of what I saw. There was no place for me to enter my past medical history, medication lists or allergies. As a physician and a software developer, I must admit, I was confused by what I saw. It was not entirely obvious from the look and feel as to what the application really does.

      I was hoping for a robust PHR. In fact, I was hoping to start signing up my patients for accounts as they presented for their appointments. However, if I found the application confusing, it would be pointless trying enroll my patients at this point.

      The bottom line as you state is, HealthVault is not a PHR but rather a “vault” of repository of health data.
      Mark Singh MD
      http://www.clinicore.blogspot.com/



    2. […] Microsoft’s HealthVault: User Manual = C-, Strategy to Create a New Ecosystem = A […]



    3. EMR Wars « Ronald Healy MD on October 6, 2007 at 4:49 pm

      […] has launched HealthVault and it has created quite a buzz in blog-dom.  Vince Kuraitis at e-CareManagement gives a nice summary of what HealthVault is and what it […]



    4. Ronald Healy MD on October 6, 2007 at 4:57 pm

      Very nice summary. I must admit that I’m somewhat hopeful that Microsoft might bring some sanity to a confusing marketplace. Let’s hope so.



    5. […] Microsoft’s HealthVault: User Manual = C-, Strategy to Create a New Ecosystem = A, Vince Kuraitis, e-CareManagement blog, 5 October 2007 […]



    6. John on October 8, 2007 at 8:40 am

      Pretty good summary here of what is and is not HV.

      Like you, agree that the majority of postings, blogs and articles about HV are incorrect or misleading. HV is NOT a PHR but what I prefer to call PHP for Personal Health Platform.

      Whether or not this takes off is highly dependent on MS’s ability to get their partners to refer their customers/consumers to HV and we are a long way from there. But, if ActiveHealth can work with their parent company Aetna and get those 800K ActivePHR customers (at least that is what I’ve heard claimed),then MS will begin seeing some traction.

      Had a briefing with MS regarding HV and will providing more discussion on topic over at my Blog, HITanalyst over on wrodpress.



    7. Joseph Kvedar on October 8, 2007 at 12:52 pm

      It seems like the real challenge coming will be how to deal with Microsoft’s platform in the face of the growing Continua Health Alliance momentum and emerging standards. Microsoft was conspicuously absent from the Continua Alliance and now we know why. My fear is that this will lead to yet another situation like Windows Media Player vs. Real vs. Quicktime or iPod vs. Zune. Many companies have ’embraced and enhances’ certain standards in an effort to claim they are standards-compliant, but consumers find out quickly that the enhancement is really about locking the consumer into one platform. Health and RPM is too important for this to happen. While this may legitimize home telehealth (it felt legitimate to me already), it may, in the not too distant future, end up adding cost to a business model where lean is really important for success.



    8. […] to try to get a better grasp of what it is (and what it is not). Over the weekend I ran across Vince Kuraitis’ post at his e-CareManagement Blog which I found to have provided some good insight. Not until reading […]



    9. L.Eduardo Cornejo, MBA on October 11, 2007 at 8:15 am

      From a business perspective MSFT HV services are free for individuals, vendors and doctors that provide services. The MSFT model is targeted search for users to search about their ailments (vertical search). Some may see this as a targeted “Google-like” model. At some point and based on the captive audience, MSFT could start offering value-add services for a fee.In the long-run, I am not sure HV is an advantage for telemedicine vendors.



    10. […] more about Microsoft’s Healthvault: – Microsoft HealthVault: Device Connectivity – e-CareManagement Blog – Medtalk: Doctor Geek, […]



    11. […] he did with Google’s PHR, talking even about trust issues, Vince Kuraitis analyzes Microsoft’s HealthVault and four misconception about it: Misconception #1: HealthVault is a […]



    12. Sandy Albert on February 27, 2009 at 3:57 pm

      I think there’s some misunderstanding about what HealthVault is. As far as my understanding goes, HealthVault is more of a platform whereby companies can develop their own software on the platform. Healthy Circles and Heart 360 from the American Heart Association are two HealthVault applications I’ve tried which go far beyond what’s the HealthVault website itself offers. These are both completely free too if anyone’s wanting to sample them.