LiveSide - News blog : HealthVault

MSN takes Health Vault mainstream, releases “My Health Info”

Kip Kniskern — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 07:01:00 GMT

Today MSN is debuting a US only (so far) beta of “My Health Info”, a new online service to help people manage their health information on the web. The new service, along with a specialized swine flu information center, is available on the MSN Health home page at health.msn.com.

The new service, running on Silverlight, connects up with Microsoft Health Vault, Microsoft’s online, open platform for gathering, storing, and sharing health information (Health Vault FAQ here, from June 2009). My Health Info will provide secure storage of health information available anywhere on the web. With My Health Info, users will be able to:

· Customize their page with tools such as allergy, medicine and blood pressure trackers, a lab results bank, body mass index calculators, vaccination information and more

· Use information from personal health devices such as heart-rate monitors and pedometers

· Access profiles of multiple family members at one time, allowing caregivers to more easily manage not only their information, but their family’s as well

· Stay informed by receiving the latest in health news from sources they trust

My Health Info, at least in this beta, looks like it still needs work in terms of look and feel, but coupling the secure features of Health Vault with the reach of MSN (Health.MSN.com receives some 85 million page views/month, according to MSN Director Lisa Gurry, who I spoke with this morning) makes a lot of sense.

Wall Street Journal signs up with Microsoft for Contextual and Paid Search advertising

Kip Kniskern — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 01:45:00 GMT

Microsoft will become the exclusive third-party ad provider for the Wall Street Journal network of sites, including The Wall Street Journal Online, Barrons.com, MarketWatch.com, AllThingsD.com and others. From the press release:

“This deal is a significant win for Microsoft for two key reasons. First, it makes the extended Microsoft advertising network the premier destination for advertisers interested in reaching financially minded users, as it complements our offering in this vertical through MSN Money and other syndication partners,” said Brian McAndrews, senior vice president, Advertiser and Publisher Solutions at Microsoft. “Second, this deal is a strong indicator that we’re gaining significant traction with our advertising platform. The Wall Street Journal Digital Network is one of the largest financial services publishers in a very dynamic vertical segment, and we’re delighted to add it to our portfolio.”

In somewhat related news, Microsoft also recently announced a partnership with the Mayo Clinic to develop consumer health management tools, using the HealthVault platform. As much as we lamented Microsoft's old school ways of doing business, we expect to continue to see aggressive signings like this to move adCenter, Health Vault, and other Live offerings forward. While Microsoft may not shine at endearing the tech press to them, there's no doubt they are very good at behind the scenes negotiations.

Microsoft announces HealthVault: Search, Store, Connect health information

Kip Kniskern — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 01:39:00 GMT

Some changes to https://health.live.com caught our eye last night, and today Microsoft announces HealthVault. The new set of services, which you can access from health.live.com, provides a secure place to search, and also to collect and store health information which can then be shared with doctors, hospitals, etc.

Microsoft is making a major push in health search and health care information. Interestingly, it is also promoting search privacy heavily in this announcement:

Created in cooperation with leading privacy advocates, respected security experts and dozens of the world’s leading healthcare organizations, HealthVault is designed and built to enhance privacy while providing people with the control they expect and require.

“Microsoft is the first major technology company to engage with the bipartisan Coalition for Patient Privacy in a serious way. The privacy protections built into HealthVault reflect the privacy principles of the Coalition. HealthVault prohibits onward transfer of data without explicit informed consent; its contractual obligations with advertisers require protection of any data transferred from the platform; its privacy policy is simple and easy to understand,” said Dr. Deborah Peel, founder of the Patient Privacy Rights Foundation. “That means consumers finally have a trusted place to store their personal health information that will not be data-mined, because they alone control it. Microsoft’s use of strong privacy principles including the principles of the Coalition, its ongoing relationship with consumer advocates, and its commitment to independent third-party audits set a new standard for privacy protections in health information technology.”

Providing secure, private search and data storage for health information is a noble effort, but this announcement also seems to be taking a shot at a certain data-mining intensive search provider. Looks like battle lines are being drawn.

HealthVault appears when you visit https://health.live.com, in the form of the Scrapbook, where you can store search information,

or by going to www.healthvault.com, where all three components of HealthVault are laid out - Search - Account - and Connection Center:

A quick explanation of the service can be found in the FAQ:

What is Microsoft HealthVault?

HealthVault is a free online service that allows you to gather, manage, and benefit from health and fitness information for you and your family. Created in cooperation with leading privacy advocates, respected security experts, and dozens of the world’s leading healthcare organizations, HealthVault was built on the principle that you should control your own health records and have access to online health management tools that you trust.

You can store health information for many people (such as your family and even your pets) in one HealthVault account. Each person’s information is stored and accessed separately.

You can choose to share specific information (or all information) with:

other people (such as your doctor or personal trainer, for example)

programs that use the raw data you store in HealthVault to provide information to you about managing your health

HealthVault Search stores your scrapbooks in HealthVault.

The Connection Center is a secure way to connect health monitor devices, for example, to the health vault:

..right now a pretty small list but this will grow. What this means is that HealthVault will offer an easy way to take your own blood pressure, for example, and securely transmit it to doctors or others that you trust and allow.

HealthVault seems to be a well thought out, secure and private, and simple set of services for managing health information, one that may prove invaluable once it gains acceptance throughout the health community.