This acquisition follows Microsoft's purchase last July of "health-intelligence" vendor Azyxxi. Mary Jo Foley is also reporting that Microsoft's Health Strategy group "has been building "Windows Live Healthcare" offerings, some of which could be free and ad-supported, and others of which could be paid and subscription-based."I am interested to see what "Windows Live Healthcare" will look like. I bet I know someone else who would be interested.
February 27, 2007
Microsoft in Healthcare and Education
tags:
healthcare,
Microsoft
Here is an interesting story about Microsoft buying a search engine within the healthcare industry. One quote that jumped out.
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Thanks Lee. I received an email today about a Wall Street article on Microsoft's venture into health care. I haven't had a chance to read it -- but plan to and will try to post my thoughts. Will also check out your links. Will be interesting to see what Google does in this space. Exciting time for health care from a policy and tech standpoint. What may make it more interesting is the 2008 presidential race.
ReplyDeleteThat's very true. I wasn't even thinking about it from that perspective. Do you think any of the canidates will be savy enough to make healthcare technology part of their political platform? I have a had time imagining it.
ReplyDeleteWho knows? I suspect we will see one or more of the candidates include tech as a part of the health care reform platform. The interesting debate for me is how universal health care will be addressed. This key decision (whether we will have it or not) will drive whether or not consumers become engaged in health care. My opinion, if we go to universal health care there is less incentive for you and me to understand the costs of health care, seek out less costly alternatives and truly become consumers of health care services. The problem that has existed with health care has been that it has been based in the employer context for so long now that you and I have come to expect it and we didn't ever look at cost. Now has health coverage become less affordable, employers less willing to pay for the increases, deductibles rising or benefits being restricted and a larger uninsured population -- you and I and John Q Public have started to become engaged in the debate of health care costs, creating transparency.
ReplyDeleteBack to the initial question -- technolology, social health care networking, etc. would be greatly impacted by a universal approach to health care b/c you and I would be less concerned with the cost issues. We'd just go get the service and could care less about the expense. The incentives to be inventive using technology become less critical. Oh I could write more but enough for this post . . .