Rx for Better Health
New technology can help create a health information system that puts consumers in control.
In a way, your health depends quite a lot on information. Having access to the latest findings on the effects of diet, exercise and other lifestyle choices can help you take action to fight off disease. When you go to your doctor with mysterious aches and pains, your medical record helps point to a diagnosis, which in turn helps determine a course of treatment that, optimally, is based on medical research and clinical evidence.
And if this information weighed anything at all, you could say the healthcare system produces tons of it: on research results and clinical outcomes, on individual and family histories, on the care provided by clinics and hospitals, and so on. These days, almost all such data is stored in digital form on computers. But it is stored in many isolated silos managed by different specialists and facilities.
As a result, information is often unavailable when and where it could do the most good. People lack knowledge that could help them lead healthier lives, and they struggle to coordinate increasingly complex treatment regimes. Physicians are forced to treat patients without all the facts, which means that patients may needlessly suffer or even die. And everyone feels powerless to contain the rising costs of a system that is inefficient, partly because of a lack of solid information to guide everyone’s actions.
Helping people harness the power of information at their fingertips is what Microsoft has always been about. Today, we’re particularly intent on helping people access and control the healthcare data that will let them make positive changes for themselves and in the healthcare system.
Last week, we launched a new technology that we call Microsoft HealthVault. It’s a platform for software and services that will enable consumers to access and control all of the disparate bits of health information they need. Designed to be free for users, HealthVault is inclusive of industry standards to provide a platform on which many companies can offer new applications, services and connected devices, to help people manage a wide range of issues from asthma to weight loss. Strong security and privacy protections are built in, so that people can use it to manage their information with confidence.
Our vision is that HealthVault will help put consumers at the center of their care, in control of their information, making them smarter and more confident in their decision-making. We want healthcare providers to be better informed and therefore able to offer better care, with less time and money spent on recordkeeping. Most of all, our vision is that, when your health depends on information, it will be there—where and when you need it.
