On October 4, Microsoft launched HealthVault, a free web-based service that allows users to store their medical records online and eventually share them with doctors and health care professionals. On October 17, an executive at Google noted that the search giant was also interested in the area of health information services. And on November 19, 23andMe, a startup focused on web-based personal genetic analysis, announced a program that will allow consumers to pay $999 for the privilege of exploring their own genomes. These latest developments -- and dozens of similar initiatives -- could push the online sharing of personal health information into the mainstream.
These efforts could make personal health records (PHRs) more popular, say experts at Wharton. PHRs give patients control of their medical records so they can share information as needed with physicians. The goal is to ease the burden on what Microsoft's Peter Neupert, corporate vice president of the software giant's health solutions group, calls the "family health manager," the mother in many families. In the October 4 announcement, Neupert said that HealthVault can be a repository to store data, such as a cholesterol test result or vaccination history, that could then be distributed, as needed, to multiple parties like doctors, athletic trainers or nutritionists.
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