At HIMSS09 I had the opportunity to sit down with folks from Microsoft and their partners to demonstrate the new Surface system running on top of Amalga.  After the conference I was able to connect with some additional folks and get some pressing questions answered:

Amalga
Q: What sections of the health care space does Microsoft intend to target Amalga over the next 5 years?
A: Getting the right information in front of the right people in the right way at the right time is fundamental to improving health around the world.  The Amalga family of enterprise health systems is designed to help health organizations liberate health data, connect it, and make it readily accessible to the people who need it, when they need it, to improve patient care.

Amalga Unified Intelligence System (UIS) is targeted at hospitals and health systems that have invested in a diverse set of IT solutions. The platform allows these organizations to unlock the power of all their data sitting in isolated clinical, financial and administrative systems and quickly present data in meaningful ways for use by clinicians and executives of leading-edge institutions. With the launch of Amalga UIS 2009, which connects to HealthVault, patients/consumers can access their medical information, stored in the hospital and aggregated by Amalga, through their personal HealthVault account. NewYork-Presbyterian introduced this functionality in April, allowing its patients to log on to myNYP.org (powered by HealthVault) and access their hospital records aggregated by Amalga.

Amalga Hospital Information System (HIS) is a fully integrated system designed for developing and emerging markets, and Amalga Life Sciences is a new software system that helps organizations across the life sciences spectrum achieve the next level of research capability by connecting data and investigators in new ways. Amalga Life Sciences is designed to transform healthcare and life science research data into the critical knowledge needed for the discovery of new personalized treatments.

Q: Do your strategic plans include specialty medical services? Do you intend to focus on hospital and clinic environments, or just hospital?  Do you intend to target the 99-bed+ facilities, or are you looking to provide a product that is available to the 10 provider and under medical centers?
A: Amalga UIS is intended for private and public hospitals (hospital owned clinics included) with more than 300 beds, but with the success of health information exchanges (HIEs), there is certainly potential for smaller clinics to benefit from sharing patient data through Amalga. For example, providers can link across the community to clinics of any size. Amalga Web and third-party HealthVault applications will enable, for example, clinicians in the community connect with the larger medical centers/hospitals to improve the flow of information and patient care. By working together, even the smaller clinics benefit by minimizing redundant work, reducing costs, and providing higher-quality care for patients.

HealthVault
Q: What do you see are the key advantages of Microsoft HealthVault over the Google Health PHR products?
A: HealthVault is designed as a platform to support an ecosystem of health applications and devices. We’ve been working hard, and in close cooperation with hundreds of stakeholders, to ensure we provide a security and privacy enhanced platform that consumers trust; that delivers real value to partners and consumers alike; that’s inclusive of industry standards; and is free to all. Microsoft views as positive any effort that spotlights the importance of providing consumers with online tools so that they may better manage their health.

Q: Mayo Clinic has recently released the “Mayo Clinic Health Manager” application that is built on top of the existing Microsoft HealthVault framework.  Do you have other medical systems that are attempting to create a branded version of a PHR on top of HealthVault?  What do you see as the advantage to the patients/customers to have multiple clinically branded applications vs. staying with the core Microsoft HealthVault application?
A: In addition to Mayo Clinic, Healthy Circles built their PHR on the HealthVault platform. We also have multiple partners who have connected their PHRs to the HealthVault platform, including ActiveHealth Management, Aetna, Health Unity, and LifeClinic, to name a few. HealthVault is not meant to be a destination. HealthVault provides the plumbing and behind the scenes connectivity so that third parties can build applications, including PHRs, on the platform. We look to our partners, who are the experts in what they do, to develop the applications that are consumer facing. Consumers then have options when deciding which PHR or application to use to better manage their health. Many consumers will look to their doctor as their trusted advisor when it comes to managing their health online. By creating an ecosystem on the HealthVault platform, doctors will have more tools available to help their patients manage their own health, in a tailored way, outside of the doctor’s office.

Surface

A: When we unveiled Microsoft Surface back in 2007, we introduced a new category of computing to the public, which takes time to grow and develop.  Right now we’re working closely with our customers and partners that have pilot programs in place to obtain feedback and ensure that the physicians and patients using Microsoft Surface are getting the best customer experience possible. We definitely see physicians having a Microsoft Surface in their office in the future and are exploring ways to making that feasible.

A: Because Microsoft Surface is still a relatively new technology, we are working with select number of developers to ensure innovative experiences and the best possible end-user experience and. While we’ve started to distribute the SDK more broadly, we anticipate further expanding  the distribution to the development community over time. We already have prototypes of Microsoft Surface applications that work with HealthVault and Amalga, which can pull information from other EHRs, regardless of the original format. Amalga essentially unlocks all the information stored in EHRs so physicians can make use of it through an intuitive interface like Microsoft Surface.

I would like to thank the folks of Microsoft’s Health division for taking the time to address my questions.  For some video demonstrations of the Microsoft Surface, head HERE