Cleveland Clinic and Microsoft HealthVault to track chronic diseases at home with Medical Devices

This is a little different and the next phase with using a PHR (personal health record) to bring patients and physicians together in working with chronic disease treatments and plans. The Cleveland Clinic will enroll 400 participants and their physicians and provide devices for the patients to use with their PC at home to connect to the Microsoft Health Vault to record information and data.

What this means is that the device will connect to the PC and transmit the readings, blood pressure, glucose readings, etc. directly to the physicians. Nobody will be doing any manual entering of numbers as the devices are set up to work through the HealthVault to send automatically once connected to the PC. This is the way a personal health record can work to benefit all, no manual typing and accurate and real time data from the devices.

This is to be integrated as well to also go to the “MyChart” section of the patient medical record at the Cleveland Clinic. This will be set up automatic to transfer and the information cannot be changed or altered in any way, thus the readings come straight off the devices. Upon the next in person visit, both the HealthVault and MyChart will be updated with readings that are done in between, thus allowing the physician to review the patient chart and current information before a consult begins, and not only that, but the patient can do the same and review the information in the HealthVault beforehand too, so both parties are aware ahead of time. Also, the information sent can alert a physician to any sudden change that might require either emergency treatment or indicate a drastic change from what is determined within tolerance for the particular patient.

So far we have talked about integration with data, but this is one of the first real pilots to be using the device section of the HealthVault and I will look forward to reading up on the progress here. Weight, can also be monitored in the same way, but I am not sure if that portion is being included for this study, but it can be done, and it could prove to be an added incentive to address overweight patients with a convenient and simple reporting system that is done from the privacy of home and at the same time keeps the treating physician up to date with what progress is being made. BD

CLEVELAND - The Cleveland Clinic is piloting the use of a personal health record system with Microsoft's HealthVault, a Web-based personal health platform. The short-term pilot, begun November 3, is the first in the country to follow multiple diseases in the clinical delivery setting using multiple at-home devices such as glucometers, heart rate monitors, weight scales and blood pressure monitors, according to Cleveland Clinic officials.

This is a quick look at the current listing of devices that work with the HealthVault.

The pilot will be a physician-driven, invitation-only opportunity offered to a group of Cleveland Clinic PHR users in the areas of diabetes, hypertension and heart failure, clinic officials said. Cleveland Clinic plans to enroll approximately 400 patients and aims to demonstrate that the program will enable patients and physicians to better manage and track chronic diseases from home, using the patients own computer.

Patients will be provided HealthVault-enabled digital devices, such as blood pressure monitors and glucometers, and asked to perform regular health monitoring. By connecting the device to their home computers, their health information will be uploaded, with their consent, to a personal HealthVault account controlled by them and then sent to their Cleveland Clinic MyChart account, according to Harris. This data will create an online log and will be available to each patient's physician. Data sent from a patient's HealthVault account to MyChart can't be changed or altered in any way.