Kaiser Permanente To Test Microsoft’s Health Vault

Kaiser Permanente To Test Microsoft’s Health Vault in General Healthcare

Many in the health care industry see making the switch to electronic health records as a key part of reducing costs and streamlining the system.

There are some institutions that use electronic records, but the patients themselves have no control over the information — and the electronic information cannot be transferred.

Technology giants Microsoft and Google have set out to change that, by creating an online tool to store personal health information.

Both companies have released their tools to the public, and are conducting pilot programs to test their effectiveness.

Recently Microsoft teamed up with Kaiser Permanente, a non-profit health insurance company based in California, to see how the insurer’s employees like Microsoft’s Health Vault.

The pilot program will include Kaiser’s 156,000 employees and run until November, reported The New York Times.

After the “testing period” has ended, and if Health Vault is well-received, Kaiser will offer the tool to their policyholders.

Most experts agree that privacy is the biggest concern with these online health records. The Times article wrote Kaiser was impressed with Microsoft’s technology for securing and protecting the records.

We hope these security measures are airtight.

“This is a big step for us, and our first partnership with a consumer health record supplier,” said Kaiser Vice President for Online Services, Anna-Lisa Silvestre.

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