Microsoft’s HealthVault - What Are the Implications?
Have you seen the Microsoft HealthVault website? Here’s the quick and short of it:
When it’s your job to protect your family’s health, you need every advantage. Imagine if you had a way to collect, store, and share the health information critical to your family’s well-being.
HealthVault is the new and FREE way to do just that.
Imagine controlling the flow of your health information. Whether you need to search the Web for the most up-to-date treatments, catalog existing health records, receive test results, or monitor current physical readings — HealthVault gives you the control you need.
I’ve got to say that I think this is a great idea. It’s irritating to me sometimes that I can’t really find a single life-time report of my health conditions. When you move and change doctors, where do all your health records go that the doctor had while he was seeing you? Are they just gone?
There’s a little bit of concern here for privacy. It’s actually not too much that data would be stolen, but the idea that if the information leaked out, I could start to be denied for things like health insurance and other benefits because of prior health issues.
The flip-side of that coin is the thought that things becoming more public and identified could spur citizens on to take better care of themselves medically. Would that be the case here?
I’m still trying to decide if I sign-up and give it a personal try out. What do you think?
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POSTED IN: Corporate News, HealthVault, Home User, New Products, Online Services, Other Microsoft Sites, Resources, Security, Speculation, User Experience
1 opinion for Microsoft’s HealthVault - What Are the Implications?
Zoli Erdos
Nov 1, 2007 at 9:51 am
No, the above is not the “quick and short of it”, it’s just the PR BS…
Have you actually tried to use HealthVault? I did.. for hours, trying to set up my Dad’s data. You have to be anuber-geek to figure it out. The generation of patients who really have health problems certainly won’t be able to use it, and even the little functionality you can get out of it is pathetic.
Sometimes I wonder if none of the designers have anyone in their family with health issues … :-(
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