A personal health records pilot test by the Department of Defense has been successful, and the military is now determining how to expand it more widely.
The service, called MiCare, is still in pilot mode at Madigan Army Medical Center in Tacoma, Wash. Plans call for it to be expanded to the Hampton Roads, Va., area and then beyond.
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MiCare will eventually give military members, their families, and veterans access to their personal health records via Internet services, including Microsoft HealthVault and Google Health. The military is also evaluating Relay Health.
The Defense Department opted to go with an online service for health records instead of an internally developed system largely due to cost and timing. “I could build all the servers, buy all the software to do that at probably a large cost and a long time, or I could do this,” said Campbell.
Privacy was a primary concern during the pilot. Patients will have the ability to opt into the system, so their healthcare records won’t go online unless they approve. Users will also be able to decide what information to share and with whom.
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Campbell said MHS has “special arrangements, involving penalties” with Google and Microsoft around security. The military also requires that information on Department of Defense employees must be stored only in the United States and that personal information is immediately deleted from vendors’ servers if an employee opts out after entering information into the system.
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