Google and Microsoft battle for health care dollars
Wednesday, May 7th, 2008Both Google and Microsoft have made moves to enter the health care industry recently, and both are hoping that the sector will prove to be fertile hunting grounds. This election season many Americans are taking stock of the way our health care system functions, and depending on the outcome in November, there may be major changes in store. Microsoft and Google are both taking a risk by pushing tools and software applications aimed at patients and professionals, and their daring may be ill-advised.
Microsoft launched a controversial health record storage tool called HealthVault in October, and thus far they have managed to attract some high profile industry partners, including American Heart Association, LifeScan (a glucometer manufacturer), and the American Diabetes Association. Talkibie covered the launch of HealthVault, and initial reactions to the technology were mixed. However, as the U.S. population ages and baby boomers become retirees, experts predict that the average patient will become more involved in tracking and managing their health records. The web is an increasingly convenient and secure option for keeping track of everything from taxes to social calendars to bank accounts, so why not hospital records?
Google had been hush-hush about a health records tool for months, though the technology world was expecting a competitor to Microsoft HealthVault. CEO Eric Schmidt finally announced Google Health in February, and the web-based application will allow patients to upload and link their personal health records to doctors offices, pharmacies, specialists, and other authorized parties. As the official Google blog puts it, “Google Health aims to solve an urgent need that dovetails with our overall mission of organizing patient information and making it accessible and useful. Through our health offering, our users will be empowered to collect, store, and manage their own medical records online.” The new record storage site is being tested at the Cleveland Clinic and Google is inviting both patients and doctors to share any thoughts or suggestions for improvement.
Microsoft also has designs beyond online patient record storage. They recently announced a new application called Patient Safety Screening Tool (PSST), which would be used within hospitals as a means of monitoring patients to prevent infection. PSST specifically targets sepsis, a deadly infection common in hospital in-patients which can affect as many as 750,000 patients annually. As a Microsoft press release explains, ““The Patient Safety Screening Tool for Sepsis can help save lives by monitoring clinical data inputs and dispatching alerts and reminders based on predefined thresholds and pattern matching to facilitate early detection and intervention.”
While all these efforts towards cracking the health care market are laudable, one has to wonder if Microsoft and Google are barking up the wrong tree. The industry is notorious for tight budgets, strict administration, and binding bureaucracy. While some might view these as barriers, these two technology companies clearly see them as opportunities for improvement. If a new software tool or web application can save doctors time, save administrators money, and save patients’ lives, it would certainly have every chance to succeed in the health care sector.
By Haley January Eckels
