New AMA and Microsoft Collaboration to Enhance Patient-Physician Communication
Microsoft’s HealthVault available to physicians
through AMA’s new Web-based portal.
Chicago, June 11, 2009 – The American Medical Association (AMA) announced today it is working with Microsoft to better connect patients with their physicians. Patients and their physicians will be able to exchange vital health care information by connecting through Microsoft’s HealthVault, a platform developed by Microsoft to store and maintain health and fitness information. Through this collaboration physicians will be able to access self reported patient health information at the point of care, while enabling patients to access vital information that has been entered through the physician’s office.
With patient consent, physicians will be able to access a patient’s HealthVault record through a new physician Web-based portal the AMA is developing with Covisint, a subsidiary of Compuware. The AMA portal, which is currently in beta testing, will provide physicians access to practice-related products, services and resources in a single location. The AMA plans to launch its new portal nationally in early 2010.
“The use of electronic medical records, and health information technology overall, holds great promise for improving patient care and increasing practice efficiency,” said AMA President-elect James Rohack, MD. “The addition of Microsoft’s HealthVault on our AMA portal will enable patients using HealthVault to share more comprehensive health information with their physicians. Having ready access to patient information can help physicians make treatment decisions and reduce the time spent gathering this information resulting in more face-to-face time with patients.”
“With the pending launch of their portal, the AMA is addressing a demand within the medical community for tools that enable physicians to join the move towards online health in a seamless, intuitive way,” said David Cerino, general manager of the Consumer Health Solutions Group at Microsoft. “Through Microsoft HealthVault’s connection to the AMA portal, patients will be able share personal health information with their physicians, who can make more informed decisions for improved coordination of care.”
The AMA has been developing its portal for more than a year. The effort is aimed at helping physicians better meet their practice-related needs. Primary offerings will include: clinical resources, practice and revenue management tools, e-prescribing and electronic health record applications and professional development resources. The AMA portal will allow for personalized content, search capabilities and learning and networking opportunities that will not require great technological expertise to implement.
“Many practicing physicians are feeling overwhelmed right now,” Dr. Rohack said. “They want help in meeting the demands of their day-to-day practices. Our goal is to provide them easy access to the tools and technologies that can help them, especially those who are looking to implement health IT into their practices. The AMA’s expertise is health care, but by collaborating with companies like Microsoft and Covisint, we can offer physicians sound IT solutions that keep health, patient care and medical practice at the forefront.”
The American Medical Association helps doctors help patients by uniting physicians nationwide to work on the most important professional and public health issues. Working together, the AMA’s quarter of a million physician and medical student members are playing an active role in shaping the future of medicine. For more information on the AMA, please visit the AMA Web site.
For more AMA news, follow us on Twitter.
Microsoft HealthVault is a personal health application platform designed to put consumers in control of their health information. HealthVault provides a privacy- and security-enhanced foundation on which a broad ecosystem of providers can build innovative health and wellness solutions such as personal health records, disease management, fitness, weight loss and other Web applications. HealthVault can be used to collect and store health information that would otherwise reside in disparate systems and transfer the information between a variety of providers’ health services and systems. It enables the reuse and free flow of interoperable and transportable personal health information.
Compuware Corporation makes IT rock around the world, helping CIOs optimize IT performance to achieve business goals. Compuware solutions accelerate the development, improve the quality and enhance the performance of critical business systems while enabling CIOs to align and govern the entire IT portfolio, increasing efficiency, cost control and employee productivity throughout the IT organization. Founded in 1973, Compuware serves the world’s leading IT organizations, including 92 percent of the Fortune 50 companies. Learn more about Compuware.