Microsoft Corporation and Mayo Clinic have partnered on a new website that focuses on storing personal medical and health information.  The Mayo Clinic Health Manager website is powered by Microsoft HealthVault.  By storing medical records on the Health Manager website, clients are able to transfer their data to new clinics or hospital specialists.

Some of the data that can be stored includes medical history, hospital visits, and heart rate monitors.  Anyone is allowed to sign up for an account and not just Mayo patients.  When signing up for the service, the website will ask several questions and make recommendations based on that information.

While many people advocate using services like these as it may be more secure than paper files and reduces medical errors, others have been against the service due to privacy.  Deven McGraw, Director of the healthy privacy project of the Center for Democracy and Technology stated that Health Manager is not covered by national laws that specify that health care systems can access and share information without consent.

Google launched a similar partnership with the Cleveland Clinic last year.

[via Associated Press]

You may remember Stephen Case from the Internet Service Providers he built from the ground up, America Online.  Now he is pursuing a new venture: getting health care information online.  This coming week, Case will be formally introducing RevolutionHealth.com.

Partnerships with Harvard Health Publications, MayoClinic.com, Cleveland Clinic, and Prevention Magazine have already been set-up.  Carly Fiorina, former President and CEO of Hewlett-Packard and Colin Powell, former U.S. Secretary of State are also involved with the project.

“There is a big opportunity to create the most trusted brand in health,” stated Stephen Case in a phone interview by the New York Times.

RevolutionHealth had 486K visitors in March and aims to provide users the ability to create custom pages in order to compete with websites like WebMD.com.  Private investors funded Case with $500 million to get RevolutionHealth off the ground.  This funding was provided by former CEOs including Carly Fiorina, Franklin Raines (former CEO of Fannie Mae), and Stephen Wiggins (founder/former CEO of Oxford Health Plans).

Case expects to create brand awareness within 5 years.  “We can afford to take the time to build the brand and build the trust” stated Case.