Microsoft Healthvault – Keeping Health Information Safe
When they are healthy, many people don’t even give their medical history a second thought. But if you become injured or ill, and you have to visit the doctor or hospital, it becomes all too apparent how important it is to be able to provide a complete medical history about yourself to the physician who will be trying to help you recover. Every time you visit a new doctor, and answer questions about your family’s health history, medications that you’re currently taking, or symptoms that you’re experiencing, you are contributing information to your medical history. In order to provide a better way for all doctors to accession his information, tools like Microsoft Healthvault have become more popular.
In case you’ve never heard about Microsoft Healthvault before, you shouldn’t feel like you’re out of the loop, there are many people that aren’t aware that there is already work underway to take advantage of funding for creating electronic record systems. Identified in the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act of 2009, the potential of electronic health information systems could have big benefits for patients and doctors that are interested in having more access to lifelong records about treatment and medicines used by a particular patient.
As the federal government continues to work out the rules and regulations of a national health information sharing system, there are demands for a more clarified definition of meaningful use of these future systems, as well as a certification method whereby participating companies, like Microsoft Healthvault could demonstrate that they are doing their best to comply with all the demands of a meaningful use system. It’s especially important that companies demonstrate that they are doing everything they can to protect patient privacy in a system that would give so many people access to sensitive medical information.
Currently, regular individuals are encouraged to access Microsoft Healthvault and to create records for themselves and their children. Information can be entered manually, from a printed health record, or via multiple devices that have been programmed to transfer their information directly to the database, like heart watches rate or blood pressure monitors. Doctors and specialists can then access the database to find out more about the treatments or illnesses that a patient has had in the past, but first they must be given permission by the individual themselves. This is a huge first step to preventing misdiagnoses and drug-allergy interactions that could jeopardize the patient’s health.
