Microsoft and Google Driving for the Same Outcome with Personal Health Records – Could DPHRs Be in the Picture

In my opinion, someday you might even see an interchange between the 2 personal health records as well.  When you stop and think about it both companies share the internet too, part of both Microsoft and Google are what I currently use, so even as competitors software folks learned a long time ago about teamwork in essence.  When someone write a good piece of code, even your biggest competitor is an admirer, and maybe that sounds foreign to many as competition functions in other industries is not the same.  Steve Ballmer has said that vocally in many of his talks about “great code” and that nothing happens until it’s implemented….developers….developers….developers.  You can find plenty of those examples on YouTube.

Again, in my opinion only I see both of these platforms with a ton of room for growth to benefit consumers, we just need better education on that end though for all to take advantage.  Eventually with the electronic medical devices appearing so quickly on the scene, perhaps a new level of aggregation might be needed to help the doctors too.  When you stop and think about it there are new devices showing up every day and how in the world is a doctor going to be able to follow and use all those results reported, a daunting task for the already overloaded MDs. 

Perhaps we could see a new level here with Physician Portals to help make this issue easier for the doctors with one central portal to review for device generated data.  Also, if something along this line is not realized, it’s a big expense too for the device folks to create integrated solutions for the EMR companies too, again a lot more code to be written. 

The PHR can be a solution with a Physician’s Portal to accumulate and all the data into one dashboard, as allowed by the patient to share.  This also stands to strengthen the patient/doctor relationship instead of further fragmentation as we are starting to see now.  Doctors need simple to use and expeditious data flow charts to give them the information they need in real time and an extension of the PHR for the physician side of this could be a solution.  With HL7 capabilities the physician could perhaps import the data into the EMR or EHR and then it becomes part of the chart, again this is done with the permission of the patient allowing the information to be shared, so maybe we could someday see a DPHR, Doctors Personal Health Record. 

I would think the medical record software companies might welcome this idea too, again saves their programmers the time and effort to writing a number of interfaces for numerous devices. 

If a doctor and patient were in agreement to share this information with outside 3rd parties, it would also be their choice.  At any rate there needs to be a unified area for all of this to come together for the physicians so read and analyze quickly.

Clinical Trials can work with PHRs too and Trialx is one company already integrating in that direction with their information.  When a physician is reviewing the DPHR portal report for example, one click could allow showing the availability of clinical trials for the patient too.  Again, this area is up to the patient pretty much to explore, but at least via the portal a physician would be aware of a trial available. 

As mentioned, Microsoft might be one step up here with integrating with Amalga, but this is something ever one could use, working with various software systems so doctors anywhere could have a unified portal to view device data information as it has been gathered.  Microsoft already has several vendors who are working with HealthVault to collect via blue tooth and USB devices with the patients, the only thing missing is a quick and convenient way to get the information to the doctors, the “DPHR” maybe?  BD 

(CNET) -- Microsoft and Google, the Hatfields and McCoy's of the high-tech industry, have carried their scrap into the race to digitize health care.

The tech rivals launched similar personal health record services in 2007. Both are pitching consumers on an electronic record that they can control and share, as they see fit, with health care providers.

With Google Health and Microsoft's HealthVault, consumers can maintain a digital health record that contains various data from medical offices, hospitals, pharmacies, and even patients themselves.

But as the warring tech giants extend their reach into health care, they are saying nice things about one another -- at least for now.

"I love Google Health," said Sean Nolan, the chief architect of Microsoft's HealthVault service. "What they are trying to do is a good thing... We are in the same boat. We're not really fighting with these guys. We're all trying to make it work.

Microsoft and Google aren't alone in this space. WebMD and Revolution Health also offer tools for building a personal health record. Efforts like those of Dossia and Aetna's ActiveHealth Management unit are working directly with employers to offer health record options to workers. Meanwhile some providers, such as Kaiser Permanente, also offer their own health records.

Microsoft, Google in healthy competition - CNN.com

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