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Information & Communication Technologies (ICT)
Could a Linkage Between Amalga and HealthVault Become a Centerpiece of Microsoft’s Healthcare Strategy?
Writing in ZDNet, Mary Jo Foley ponders the question of whether it might make sense for Microsoft to link HealthVault (HV) and Amalga.
I’ll take this a step further and ask “Could a linkage between HealthVault and Amalga become a centerpiece of Microsoft’s broader health care strategy?”
Healthcare Informatics Webinar: Google, Microsoft, & Dossia Create the Personal Health Information Network
What are companies like Google, Microsoft, and Dossia (sponsored by Intel, Wal-Mart, AT&T and others) hoping to accomplish in health care?
What is the emerging Personal Health Information Network (PHIN) and why should you care?
What’s the Continuity of Care Record (CCR) Standard, and how is it destined to become an initial focal point of data exchange initiatives?
Why is the PHIN potentially disruptive to many business models? What types of companies or organizations could be affected the most?
What are opportunities and threats to major health care players — hospitals, […]
Data Incompatibility Remains A Barrier to Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM) Devices Reaching the Mainstream
The Continua Health Alliance is doing a good job in getting remote patient monitoring (RPM) devices to become plug-n-play — where devices and peripherals from different manufacturers complying with Continua Guidelines will be able to talk to one another.
Continua’s work-to-date is a necessary, but not yet sufficient effort to make RPM devices mainstream.
Knocking down the barrier of device-incompatibilty exposes the bigger barrier of lack of data interoperability among RPM technologies and between RPM devices and health care IT systems. Jonathan Edwards, […]
Three New Reports On Aging and Technology
Older Americans 2008: Key Indicators of Well-Being, AgingStats.gov, Federal Agency Forum on Aging-Related Statistics
Healthy@Home, commissioned by AARP and the Blue Shield of California Foundation
State of Technology in Aging Services, Center for Aging Services Technology (CAST)
These reports are succinctly profiled with links to the full studies at Profiles of older health care consumers: living longer, longing for technology on Jane Sarasohn-Kahn’s Health Populi blog. A great read!
Feds Call on Google and Microsoft to Breathe Life into the NHIN
Vince Kuraitis and David C. Kibbe, MD MBA
Who is the federal government calling on to breathe life into the Nationwide Health Information Network (NHIN)? Google and Microsoft.
In our first article of this series describing the Personal Health Information Network (PHIN), we noted early entrants as Google Health, Microsoft HealthVault, and Dossia. We also noted that the network could grow rapidly, and that others would want to join or link to the PHIN.
With Uncle Sam announcing plans to link to the PHIN, […]
Search Engines Using Your Personal Health Information: Creepy or Cutting Edge?
When using a search engine, should results be customized based on your personal health information (PHI)? Should your search engine of choice take into account your previous history of medical searches, or even provide results tailored from data about your personal medical history?
Two companies — Aetna and Microsoft — have come up with 180 degree different answers.
In this post, I will:
Describe how Aetna’s and Microsoft’s approaches differ
Speculate on why their approaches make strategic sense for the respective companies
Explore how technology and expectations about […]
4 Reasons Why Health Plans Struggle with PHRs
Aetna recently made another big announcement relating to their PHR. While the concept of what they’re doing is very appealing, it strikes me that health plans in general face an uphill battle in getting consumers to adopt and use personal health records (PHRs).
I’ll describe 4 factors behind my thinking:
Lack of Trust
Lack of Access to Clinical Data
Lack of Permission
Lack of Convenience in Consumer Workflow
Birth Announcement: the Personal Health Information Network (PHIN)
Vince Kuraitis and David C. Kibbe, MD MBAÂ
The Internet and digital technologies have transformed many aspects of our lives over the past twenty years. We can get cash at ATMs all over the world; we can book our own airline reservations; we can shop and get best prices over the Internet.
Why hasn’t this happened in health care? Something is missing.
Recently, major global information and communication companies have announced their intention to bring their technologies and business models to health care. […]
A First Comparison of Google Health and MS HealthVault
While details are thin, here’s a first pass at comparing and contrasting Google Health (GH) and Microsoft HealthVault (HV). Overall, there are many common features, some differences, and many common challenges between these two platforms.Â
A High Level Comparison
Google Health and Microsoft HealthVault Personal Health Information (PHI) Platforms
There’s still not much information available about the specifics of GH, although they did release sketchy information on the Official Google Blog.  I’ll comment on a few of the particulars.
Are HIEs a Dead Horse?
Do local Health Information Exchange (HIE) participants have the right economic motivations to make them work? Â
A report released this week raises strong doubts. The study — Creating Sustainable Local Health Information Exchanges: Can Barriers to Stakeholder Participation be Overcome? — was  funded by the U.S. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) and conducted by the Center for Studying Health System Change (CSHSC). The term HIE is often used interchangeably with RHIO (Regional Health Information Exchange).
What’s different about this study? The CSHSC report goes a step further than other recent reports […]