14 DAY TRIAL // More than 40 new online applications and devices have been made available for Microsoft HealthVault. The Microsoft HealthVault Solutions Conference on June 9 was the stage where a wide array of third-party solutions designed to run on top of HealthVault were introduced. According to Microsoft, the new applications and devices have been set up to integrate seamlessly with its consumer health platform and to enhance a range of basic functionality such as health information sharing and management in various scenarios.
"Every day health organizations approach us with new ideas to improve the health of individuals and families," explained Peter Neupert, corporate vice president, Health Solutions Group at Microsoft. "We're excited to see so many of those ideas brought to market using HealthVault."
The new HealthVault-based solutions focus on multiple areas of health data sharing and handling issues, including patient-doctor information sharing, personal health records, as well as fitness, wellness and productivity. Patients and doctors can now share information via HealthVault from an account in Microsoft's health platform and the electronic medical records. At the same time, managing health information from clinical records to biometric health screening, and even fitness tracking is crucial in increasing the overall patient's health. On top of the applications offered for HealthVault, Microsoft partners also delivered devices from weight scales to pedometers.
"A year ago -- we had working code and a beta environment for our very early partners. Nothing available to the public. Lots of talk and ideas here and in the industry at large - but not much tangible. Today we have over 30 web health applications that copy data to/from HealthVault and enable users to reuse their health information in new ways without the burden of re-entering it all the time. We also have 50 personal health devices from weight scales to glucometers to peak flow meters and more that connect directly to HealthVault -- which makes it so much easier for people to use this information to understand how to stay well or to use it in communicating with their physician," Neupert stated.