Tomorrow, I’ll be heading to Seattle to attend Microsoft’s annual Connected Health event. Last year’s event provided some useful insight’s into Microsoft’s international intentions which were most recently reflected in their partnership with Siemens to take HealthVault to Germany. Last year’s event was also prophetic in Microsoft’s deepening intent to serve the provider market. Based on the agenda I’ve seen for this year’s event, that intention has only increased.
So what do I hope to get out of this year’s event?
A deeper understanding of how providers are actually using the Health Solutions Group (HSG) of products that MSFT is now taking to market. Particularly interested in learning more about the HealthVault Community Connect product which is basically a productization of its work with New York Presbyterian that resulted in myNYP.org.
A clearer picture of the HSG strategy to facilitate a physician/hospital in meeting forthcoming meaningful use requirements. In particular, wish to learn how HSG will extend its partnership with Eclipsys and other ISVs with regards to modular apps on the Amalga platform, which looks to be morphing into a Platform as a Service model similar to HealthValut.
Progress on HSG’s international efforts. Yes, they’ve landed Telus in Canada, Siemens in Germany and some EMR sales in Southeast Asia, but what is next? Also, with regards to Telus and Siemens, what progress has been made to date, what have been some of the challenges.
Now if there is anything in particular that you, dear reader, woul like to know more about, please feel free to add something to the comments section below and I’ll see what I can do to get some answers.
I’d be interested to know the latest on their payer strategy and any new or impending partnerships or pilots with payers.
Jonathan,
Based on what I have seen of the agenda and the speakers therein, this looks to be very provider focused. Not sure that MSFT sees a lot of value in the payer market at this time for their solutions and honestly, the majority of payers tend not to spend much $$$ on IT and it shows.
It’s true that so far most payers tend not to spend much on consumer-facing IT. They’ve spent a lot more on other IT systems. But with health care reform and the expansion of the individual market, insurers will have to pay more attention to consumer-facing IT. Healthvault could be well-situated to respond to this.
Well Jonathan, MSFT really had very little to say to/for the payer market – virtually ignored them and honestly, not too surprised as payers by and large have been laggards in IT adoption.
I suppose it’s no surprise that I’d love to see an articulation of MSFT’s strategy to put healthcare in the hands of consumers.
I fully support their making the tools attractive to providers so they do get implemented. Having said that, I’d love to see a clear-but-not-dumbed-down exposition of what patients will be able to see and do when their providers implement a MSHV environment.
As healthcare becomes more participatory I suspect we’ll increasingly see people shop for that ability. Today engaged patients tell me there’s no way they’d switch docs based on patient portal. But that’s out the window when people do need to change for any reason.
Dave,
I’ll see what I can find out for you. With regards to citizen-provider engagement, suggest you look at their HealthVault Community Connect product and if you have the time, myNYP.org as this is an attempt by MSFT to address what you are looking for.
More broadly, hope to understand how MSFT plans to bring all these various pieces together, from Amalga to HV to Connection Center and then the ISV partners that ride on top of the key platform plays. A lot of pieces but how they knit together into a cohernet solution is what I wonder about and hope to learn from those attempting such.
Dave, right now MSFT is going to the provider market with one of its newest offerings, HealthVault Community Connect. Still a work in progress and right now functionality is focusing on automating, or at least putting it into the hands of consumers, appointment pre-registration and providing consumers with a digital copy of discharge paperwork (labs, instructions, notes etc.). Participatory functions are still pretty thin here and MSFT is looking to partners (ISVs) such as Mayo to fill in many of the gaps.
Enjoy the event. I wish I were going, but it didn’t work out with my schedule. I’ll look forward to your tweets and posts, and I hope that presentations will be posted after the event, too (There is a link to the 2009 presentations here: http://www.healthvault.com/chc2009/).
Dave, Mike Gillam, MD, from Microsoft’s HSG gave a terrific talk at the Xconomy Healthcare in Transition (#XHIT) event in Cambridge last month that focused on patient-centered health. Someone termed the preso “TEDMED” quality. I wouldn’t be surprised if a similar presentation were given in Bellevue this year.
Janice,
Well CRAP, how did I not know about the Xconomy event?? Keep me in the loop, willya? 🙂
How about you ask them about their tablet offerings and the iPad. I’ll be interested to hear what they have to say about that.