HealthVault - Psst, it's free!

If you are a patient desiring to keep track of your of health care electronically, Microsoft HealthVault is there to help. Once you sign up for free, HealthVault will give you a Direct Exchange address. You can give this address to your providers and, if they are Direct enabled, they will be able to send you results electronically to your HealthVault account.  By the way, you can sign in to Microsoft HealthVault with your FaceBook account. 

Here is an example of a letter HealthVault offers you to give to your doctor:

----
Microsoft HealthVault
Patient Name: Your Name
Direct address: yourname@direct.healthvault.com

Please send my medical information from your medical records system directly to my personal HealthVault record using the Direct address listed above. I’m taking an active role in my health and wellness by keeping a personal health record in HealthVault. By sending my medical information directly to HealthVault, you can help me manage the information about my health care. Thank you. 

More information If you are using an electronic health record (EHR) system that is certified for Meaningful Use Stage 2, then your software may be able to generate a CCDA and send it to me using the Direct protocol. (As you may know, Direct is a security-enhanced health messaging protocol designed to help protect health information when it is sent from one computer system to another). Your EHR software vendor should be able to provide instructions.

If you can’t yet send information via Direct, can you give electronic records another way, such as a disc? (My plug: or suggest the provider contacts Infomedtrix for a provider Direct account) HealthVault accepts structured information in CCDA, CCD, CCR, and BlueButton formats, as well as information in unstructured files as images, PDFs, and text. You can find more information about HealthVault and how it supports Meaningful Use Stage 2 at www.healthvault.com/providers.