LOS ANGELES, June 9 (Xinhua) -- U.S. managed care provider Kaiser Permanente announced Monday a major test of Microsoft's free website HealthVault for storing personal health information that is intended to give individuals access to their medical records.
The California-based healthcare insurance organization said that all of its 159,000 employees are eligible to participate in the pilot program and transfer data between its online records management system and HealthVault.
If the test is successful, the program will be expanded to Kaiser's 8.7 million health plan members across the United States.
Launched by Microsoft in October, Health Vault is designed to give people a place to store all their medical information, from prescriptions to examine reports.
While insurers like Kaiser offer their members access to online databases, the Microsoft website provides people a way to pull that data together on an independent site.
Industry analysts said the pilot program will be the largest partnership between a third-party data site and a major insurer.
Kaiser Permanente operates one of the most extensive healthcare systems in the United States. In addition to offering health insurance, the organization has some 13,000 physicians in its Permanente Medical Groups, while its hospital system includes about 30 medical centers and more than 415 medical offices.
Google, Microsoft's arch rival in the lucrative Internet service market, launched a similar online service called Google Health last month.
Centralized health records could benefit people who switch doctors or who see doctors belonging to different healthcare systems, and they could also help the healthcare industry cut costs and improve service.
However, privacy experts warn that consumers should be aware of he risk that a security breach could expose their personal medical information online.
