N.Y. hospital taps Microsoft to digitize records
An example of the kind of health records that NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital will make available to patients using Microsoft's HealthVault and Amalga technologies.
(Credit: Microsoft/CNET)In a win for Microsoft's health care business, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital said it will use the software maker's technology as part of a push to make digital health records available to its patients.
The hospital system will start making health records available online, initially to cardiac and cardiothoracic patients. Customers can view their records online, opt to copy them into a personal health record and then, if they wish, share that record with other health care providers.
Boyer
(Credit: Microsoft/CNET)"These really are the patients' records," said Aurelia Boyer, a former practicing nurse, who now serves as NY Presbyterian's CIO. "It is really their data. it is not the hospital's."
However, that's a big shift for the industry, Boyer acknowledges. "Doctors and hospitals have kept those records sort of under lock and key."
The deal also marks the first time that a Microsoft customer has gone with both its Amalga technology for managing the provider's own records and at the same time tapped HealthVault to provide patient access. Microsoft but said at the time it would need to line up health care providers to provide people with the impetus to sign up for an account.
The federal government has included billions of stimulus dollars to help spur the health care industry toward digital health records.
Google is also taking aim at the space and has partnered with IBM.
Last week, GE and Intel announced a $250 million joint effort in the digital health arena, with their effort heavily focused on helping people treating and living with chronic illnesses.
At NY Presbyterian, Boyer said that the hospital has put the infrastructure in place to handle large numbers of patients, but wants to start slow to make sure it has the human factors right--educating patients, making sure they know how to secure records, etc.
"We want to make sure we watch our process and we do it well with the patients," she said. Digital heath records, she said, is a part of a broader effort to improve care using technology.
"We are attracted to empowering the patients, helping them move to health and managing their health and not just focusing on such a single episode of care," Boyer said.
Opening back health records to the patient should also help the physicians who refer people in to hospitals such as NY Presbyterian.
"Now my referring physician, if giving right permissions, can look into my Amalga record," said Steve Shihadeh, a vice president in Microsoft's healthcare unit. "One of their big complaints is I send the patient in...and I don't really know what has happened to my patient."
During her years at CNET News, Ina Fried has changed beats several times, changed genders once, and covered both of the Pirates of Silicon Valley. These days, most of her attention is focused on Microsoft. E-mail Ina. 
For example, if I go to this hospital which runs Microsofts software to put my information online, will the next hospital I go to be able to read the information even if they're running Googles software?
Perhaps more important than any other area, hospitals need to be able to communicate with each other in the very least where patient records are concerned.
This current vision for a comprehensive electronic health record (EHR) system itself is fairly new. It was proposed by President Bush in 2004 during his State of the Union address, setting a goal to modernize Health Information Technology by 2014. The scope goes beyond patient records, but also hospital workflows, exchange of laboratory results, etc. This vision is also being adopted internationally, and by necessity more standards are being drafted and revised.
If there are 25 million (and counting) unemployed workers and their families around the world who cannot afford health care costs, roofs over their heads, food on the family table, pay for their children's education... then what "health records (will these have) available online"!
What good is it to fight for slavery and then not even bother to construct walls around the plantation to keep the slaves from seeking freedom?
I just feel sorry for the patients of this hospital - anyone wanna bet how long it takes "the bad guys" to gain access to this system? Hint: look at M$'s history on security.
When Microsoft is involved you can rest assured they will NEVER submit to a standard. Throughout Microsoft's entire history I've watched this scenario play out time and time again. Microsoft enters a market and destroys any fair competition. The consumer will lose here as they have in many other areas. Not to mention health records being stored on an insecure and unstable Microsoft technology.
So you could create better technologies?
Go spread your FUD elsewhere please.
Get with the future, and understand from the past, Microsoft is here to stay, and they are not going ANYWHERE.
- by helroth April 6, 2009 2:40 PM PDT
- I guess this is good if you have a virus - Microsoft's got a lot experience with that.
- Like this Reply to this comment
-
(18 Comments)