SEATTLE - Microsoft Corp. launched a Web site Thursday for managing personal health and medical information, but privacy advocates worry that neither the technology nor U.S. law will protect patients' most confidential details.
From the consumer's point of view, Microsoft's HealthVault site is part filing cabinet, part library and part fax machine for an individual's or a family's medical records and notes.
The free site can store medical histories, immunization and other records from doctors' offices and hospital visits, including data from devices such as heart monitors. It is also tied to a health information search engine the software maker launched last month.
Users can dole out access to different slices of their health data via e-mailed invitations to doctors, family members and others as the need arises.
Microsoft has been kicking around the idea of a health site since at least 2000, when chief executive Steve Ballmer described a 'health vault' in a speech to financial professionals in New York.
The software maker isn't the first to jump into the ring. Across the country, groups of providers are starting 'regional health information organizations' to share data electronically.
Insurance providers and private companies market their own flavors of patient-controlled storehouses of records, and employers including Wal-Mart Stores offer such tools to workers.
Steve Case, co-founder of AOL, has launched Revolution Health, an information Web site that offers a records management tool for paying members, and Google has indicated it will launch a service.
Microsoft said it plans to support HealthVault with advertising revenue from the search portion of the site.
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