• Economist, Friday, October 5, 2007 10:45 AM

Microsoft Corp. is moving into health care. CEO Steve Ballmer described a future where everyone would have a secure and private Web site containing their personal health information, where doctors could post scans, x-rays, test results and visit information. Individuals could then choose to see who has access to view some or all of that information.

The new product is called Health Vault. Microsoft's plan is to make each personal Web site as secure as keeping it in a bank, storing all health data and giving users immediate access to those records at any time, via the Web. Medical offices and hospitals can sign up for the service and send test results in digital form to the vault. The software giant has several launch partners for the new initiative, including the American heart, diabetes and lung associations, the NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, Omron and Texas Instruments, and other lesser-known wellness sites.

Implementation is another matter. Google, Intel and others have tried and effectively failed to get the digital health movement going. Also, the big question is, how will Microsoft make any money? The answer: vertical search. Microsoft will crawl individuals' sites and cross-reference their data with a bank of medical advertisers and match them.

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