DoD expanding personal health record

Having successfully completed a pilot test, the Department of Defense is moving to expand its personal health record. The PHR, MiCare, allows military members, their families and veterans to access their information through the web using services like Microsoft HealthVault and Google Health, and may possibly add Relay Health PHR tool in the future.

The pilot took place at Madigan Army Medical Center in Tacoma, WA. Now, the DoD plans to expand MiCare to the Hampton Roads, VA area and then to other military sites. The DoD is also looking at ways to collaborate with the Department of Veterans Affairs on this effort.

To DoD went with outside PHR vendors because it felt the outside vendors could delivery a system far more quickly and cheaply than it could. However, it has security-enhanced the gateway between its own electronic health record and the Google and Microsoft PHR systems. If Google and Microsoft have a security breach, they face DoD penalties.

Meanwhile, as part of the effort, the DoD is overhauling its EMR system, which even its own officers admit is slow, unreliable and not user-friendly.

To learn more about this effort:
- read this iHealthBeat piece

Related Articles:
DoD launches personal health record with Microsoft, Google
Microsoft, DOD build health data warehouse

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