Yesterday Microsoft officially announced their first major product in the Healthcare space. Microsoft’s entry into the market comes with the beta release of HealthVault. HealthVault is a set of tools built on the Microsoft platform using Microsoft’s “Software + Services” (S+S) vision. The goal behind HealthVault is to provide a set of services that easily allow consumers to manage their health information and share appropriate information with their doctors, family, or others that may need the information. Additionally, as a service-based architecture, it integrates with offerings from several other companies and can integrate into software being used in medical offices. As part of the announcement, Microsoft also discussed integrated medical devices like blood pressure gauges, blood-sugar devices, and so forth that will integrate with the service. Companies like Johnson and Johnson will be releasing these devices that will allow the device to synchronize with your Windows PC loading data directly into HealthVault.
In addition, 10 other companies announced integration with HealthVault including the American Heart Association. The tool also includes a built-in search engine that will only return health related information.
This is just the first of many things coming from the ~600 person Health division at Microsoft. Look for more announcements, tools, and items to come from this group over the next couple of years.
If you would like to try HealthVault, just go to http://www.healthvault.com.