Aetna Allows Members to Connect to Microsoft HealthVault

Microsoft’s relationship with Aetna, one of the nation’s largest private insurers, seems warming up. On Oct 21, 2008, the two companies announced a new collaboration that will allow six million Aetna members, or 16% of Aetna’s total insured lives, to transfer their personal health information from Aetna’s own PHR to Microsoft’s HealthVault. The long-term goal is to allow all members to do so.

Aetna’s PHR capability is built on its acquired assets from ActiveHealth Management back in 2005. ActiveHealth’s CareEngine system compiles member data from a variety of sources such as medical and pharmacy claims, lab results and information provided directly from the member, and create a personal health record for patients. Based on my own experience, Aetna’s PHR still lacks automated tools and applications that will make the medical information more meaningful for members. That’s what Microsoft’s HealthVault might come to help with. HealthVault is designed to be not only a record book but also an epicenter of new applications that can turn medical data into knowledge and action plans for consumers.

What will Aetna gain from the collaboration? Jumping to my mind first is the cost associated with continuous development of PHR system and tools that Aetna will save. Microsoft will absorb such costs and perhaps can do a much better job in application development than Aetna can by itself.

The second benefit is perhaps to increase the usage of PHRs among its members so as to benefit Aetna in reducing future claim costs. Since Aetna’s introduction of its PHR in late 2006, about six million members started to use it. It is an impressive adoption number, but perhaps not good enough. More importantly, I do not believe patient’s interaction level with Aetna’s PHR is meaningful enough to influence their behaviors at this point—one reason being the lack of useful tools that will enable patients to reap the benefits of owning a PHR. By allowing patients to access HealthVault’s applications, Aetna hopes that usage will improve.

Furthermore, using a third-party PHR could alleviate some consumers’ concern over insurer’s ownership of personal health data. They fear that if they add medical information other than from the claim records (like family history, smoking habits, etc.), insurers could use it against them (e.g. raise insurance premium sometime down the road). HealthVault’s security and privacy protection might alleviate such concerns, and encourage usage accordingly.

Finally, Aetna could leverage HealthVault to win more businesses with employers. Once PHR use proves to lower medical expenditure, Aetna can use it as a marketing tool to recruit more corporate clients.

What will Microsoft benefit from the deal? Obviously, the whole third-party PHR vendor space faces the issue of “when built, who will come?” Recruiting users can be expensive and scale is the key to PHR’s success. By courting Aetna, HealthVault has access to a big pool of potential users. I won’t be surprised if more such deals are announced in the next six months.

Continua Health Alliance Added Dossia and Google as New Members, Announced Public Demo

Continua Health Alliance, a consortium for advancing technology adoption in the healthcare industry, announced this past Tuesday that Dossia and Google are joining the organization. For those who are not familiar with Dossia, it is a consortium made of many large self-insured employers and devoted to create personal health records (PHR) for their employees. Its members include AT&T, Wal-Mart, Cardinal Health, Intel, BP, Applied Materials, etc. Google, as we all know, introduced its Google Health platform in May 2008, and its new-found connection with Continua aims to offer consumers the ability to upload health data from home monitoring devices to Google-powered online health data banks.

This is a positive development for the personal health care industry. Personal health data collected by home health monitoring devices do not provide much value to patients and doctors if they remain locked in the devices. With access to personal health records and an expanding list of tools to interact with the data, consumers, with the help of their doctors, can unlock the value of this information and make smart decisions on their health. Google Health and Dossia’s personal health record database and application tools can serve this purpose well. Both have made progress in the past several months. Wal-Mart has started to expand use of Dossia’s PHR from a trial group to all its employees. Other Dossia members are said to take similar steps soon. Google Health, on the other hand, has forged partnerships with major drug stores, pharmacy benefit management firms, healthcare provider groups, and lab testing companies since its debut. Working with Continua is another step to add value to their respective platforms. In this embryonic healthcare industry segment, this type of collaboration, instead of competition, is much needed.

The news also caused me to think of another active participant in the personal health record business: Microsoft’s HealthVault division. HealthVault in recent month has gained great momentum regarding expanding its influence and attracting endorsement. The latest move with Aetna, one of the nation’s largest health insurers, was also good indication of the traction it scored with the health payer groups. In public presentations, HealthVault stated the same vision of connecting home health monitoring devices with its platforms, but it hasn’t joined Continua yet. Rather, it is working with individual companies on specific applications, at least for now. Is Google and Dossia’s partnership with Continua a turn-on or turn-off for HealthVault? We will see whether Microsoft will mandate its applications’ compatibility with Continua’s technology standards.

Speaking of standards, Continua also announced that its members will demonstrate interoperability among pre-certified products and services based on Continua’s standards on Oct 27, 2008 at the Partners Healthcare’s Annual Symposium event. I will host a panel discussion at that event on the emerging Medical Home model. BTW, when will we see collaboration between the Continua and the Patient Centered Primary Care Collaborative (PCPCC)?