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PHIN (Personal Health Information Network)

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, […]

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 […]

Birth Announcement: the Personal Health Information Network (PHIN)

Vince Kuraitis and David C. Kibbe, MD MBA 

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.  […]