Google and Microsoft win big with the passage of health reform
- TAGS:Google, healthcare reform, Microsoft
- IT TOPICS:Applications, Enterprise Apps, Government & Regulation, Internet, Operating Systems, Windows
The recently passed health reform bill will do more than reform the healthcare industry and extend health insurance to millions of uninsured Americans. It will also prove to be a long-term bonanza for Google and Microsoft, who both have major tech-related healthcare services under development.
Buried in the many provisions of the bill are a variety of pilot programs designed to improve the quality of health care, the efficiency with which it's delivered, and to hold down or reduce costs. You can be sure that plenty of attention and money will go towards electronic medical records and healthcare IT.
Those medical records won't just be for healthcare providers and insurers. They'll also be vital for individuals to use as well. Ultimately, you'll be able to get access to your medical records, including prescriptions, charts, medical history, and so on, via the Internet.
That's where Microsoft and Google come in. Both companies are betting that consumer access to their medical records will be big business eventually. Microsoft's services is called HealthVault, and Google's is Google Health. Both are somewhat rudimentary at this point, but you've got to start somewhere.
They won't stay rudimentary. Billions of dollars are going to start flowing towards making health care more efficient, and tens of millions of previously uncovered people will be part of the health system. That means a big market opportunity, and both Google and Microsoft will make sure to tap it by improving their services.
As just one sign of how seriously Microsoft views the market opportunity in healthcare IT, Microsoft recently hired the Food and Drug Administration's chief medical device reviewer Donna Bea Tillman to serve as director of regulations and policy for Microsoft's health information unit.
So if you're looking for where big money and innovation will be tomorrow, look to the intersection of healthcare and computing, spurred at least in part by the just-passed healthcare reform bill.
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