Health 2.0 Liveblog: Consumer Information Aggregators

By Craig Stoltz

Five companies that are leaders in making consumer data, including personal health records, available.

Web MD: Just did a deal with Wal-Mart, making WebMD personal health records and tools available to employees. Proof that health technology adoption is moving “from the salaried workers to the hourly workers.”

Comment: Includes a PHR for members to use.

HealthVault, Microsoft: Now has developed 90-plus partners making products for the platform. Seeking to make it easier for doctors and patients to share information. HealthVault launch is part of a “long journey” in integrating information for consumers and with healthcare system. Have created an “industry” around making these connections happen. New partnership with Kaiser, integrating its own PHR service with the HV platform. Process to copy Kaiser health record to HealthVault is multi-step and multi-click box/policy agreement process–not a smooth demo. Multiple sign-outs and sign-ins.

Comments: The demo failed–yikes. The conference gives him a “do-over”. . .and that fails too. Dude: Smooth it or lose it.

Aetna: Launch of personal health record across their patient population. Data from docs, labs, patients. integrated. Made it portable, allowing access to PHR via print or online. Aetna members can use HealthVault, with mutual back-and-forth of data between platforms.

Comments: Do patients trust their insurance company with the full details of their health? Another log-in issue! Crowd applauds when he’s able to actually get into the personal health record. Like many such service, “health coaching” is available.

Google: Last 12 months encouraging and humbling. Encourage: Google Health has launched–portable, controllable patient information. Learning has begun, but Google iterates to improve. Humbling: “This is incredibly hard.” They want it to be easy, and they want it to be useful. We’re good with easy. Useful: Still working.

Comments: Has launched program with pharmacy chains, to integrate med use data with personal health records. Data go from pharmacy directly to Google Health in real time. This demo fails too…and exposes a really UGLY, DOS-era pharmacist data input tool.

Yahoo Health: “How much demand there is for health content. Two new partnerships: Waterfront Media [operator of Everyday Health, a big, successful health content company which has gobbled up the scraps of Revolution Health*] will distribute health content; and HealthGrades, provider of physician data information. [Conflict of interest: I am a former employee of Revolution Health.]

Comments: HealthGrades will provide some basic individual doctor information [with an opportunity to dig into deeper content, some of it paid content] and mashup it up with Yahoo Groups, ratings and recommendations, plus Yahoo Answers. Unlike other groups on the stage, Yahoo is not offering a PHR–it’s all about the consumer-centric information.