Microsoft HealthVault Partners with Aetna

Microsoft’s HealthVault or Google’s Google Health are the best known competitors is the emerging market for electronic health records (EHR) or personal health records (PHR). (The two terms are often used interchangeably, although EHR is meant to refer to the provider-controlled record (with myriad legal issues attendant to its content) and PHR to the patient-controlled record, so that, technically, both are PHR.) The Wall Street Journal reports that Microsoft has partnered with Aetna to transfer enrollee medical records to HealthVault. Patients enrolled in Aetna health plans will have the option of placing their Aetna PHR (e.g. claims, diagnoses, test results and prescriptions in HealthVault. The partnership with Aetna follows a June 2008 announcement of a HealthVault trial partnership with Kaiser. None of the major health plans (in California, Anthem Blue Cross, Blue Shield, United, Cigna, or Health Net) have yet partnered with Google Health.