Microsoft has a Caradigm for improving health care record-keeping

Health care record-keeping is still far from a universal system in the U.S., but Microsoft is looking to change that. According to Bloomberg Businessweek, Microsoft’s joint venture with General Electric to modernize health care technology – which experts predict will increase care efficiency and cut costs – has taken a big step forward. It now has a name: Caradigm.

Merging care and paradigm

Caradigm, a new company that should become fully operational by mid-2012, will begin by employing 750 people in the Seattle area. A merging of the worlds “care” and “paradigm,” Caradigm will work to modernize health care through the use of various applications that will assist doctors, hospitals and patients to more effectively manage health care records and related information from a dizzying array of outside databases. With all a patient’s information in one place, health care providers can more quickly steer a patient toward appropriate care and lessen the need for repeat visits and man hours.

Years in the making

For a number of years, Microsoft’s HealthVault Web service has provided patients with a place to store information on prescriptions and other personal health care records. Also, a software package called Amalga would have made it easier for health care providers to access patient X-rays, lab results and other scans in one place. The health care community didn’t take to Amalga, however. Caradigm takes the same ideas and improves upon them, writes Microsoft.

Long-term commitment

Microsoft hasn’t given up hope after years of misfires with health care record-keeping reform. Chief Executive Steve Ballmer, who is reportedly determined to diversify Microsoft’s product line, won’t let history impede his company’s efforts.

“We’d better keep moving,” he said in a recent interview. “There’s just more to do from an applications innovation perspective.”

Google abandoned the race

Experts agree that Microsoft’s recent health care reform efforts – as spearheaded by Caradigm – are intriguing, largely because the company’s chief rival, Google, has abandoned the race. When Larry Page took over as Google’s CEO in 2011, projects like Google Health were jettisoned. Google even went so far as to urge its Google Health customers to migrate their records into Microsoft’s HealthVault.

[Need bad credit loans, not payday loans?]

Considering that health care information is among the most valuable data available, it is interesting that Google would give business directly to its arch rival. For the time being, Google is focusing its expansion efforts on social networking. While Microsoft’s success with Caradigm is far from guaranteed – particularly in light of past efforts – Bloomberg believes that there’s something to be said for the company’s level of determination.

Microsoft: Making hospitals more efficient

Sources

Bloomberg Businessweek

Microsoft

Seattle Times