REDMOND, Wash. — Feb.

8, 2011 — Brooks Rehabilitation, Mason General Hospital, Stewa

rd Health Care System and PeaceHealth St. Joseph Health Center are among the hea
lth systems implementing Microsoft HealthVault Community Connect to improve care
coordination and engage patients and families in managing their own health, Mic
rosoft Corp. announced today. The company also said it has developed a sales and
services channel for the health portal solution comprising a select group of bu
siness and technology consulting organizations nationwide.
HealthVault Community Connect enables hospitals to give patients and referring p
hysicians access, after discharge, to electronic copies of the patients’ personal
health data generated at the hospital. The product also lets patients preregiste
r for hospital appointments online using their electronic personal health inform
ation to populate hospital forms in advance.
“At Mason General, we believe delivering the highest quality healthcare depends on
our ability to make all relevant information accessible whenever, wherever and
however it’s needed,” said Eric Moll, chief administrative officer, Mason General Ho
spital, Shelton, Wash. “This vision applies not just to physicians in our health s
ystem but also to patients, families and the referring physician community. With
HealthVault Community Connect, we can extend processes beyond our hospital wall
s, provide patients and physicians with easy access to important care informatio
n, and improve the experience of every participant in the care process, before,
during and after treatment.”
Mason General Hospital is a critical access hospital and one of the highest-rate
d “Most Wired” hospitals in Washington state. For the third consecutive year, Mason
General Hospital has received national acclaim for its health information techno
logy, according to the results of the American Hospital Association’s Journal’s “2010
Most Wired Survey.”
Mason General Hospital has implemented a new patient and physician portal using
HealthVault Community Connect to better engage patients in their healthcare and
to improve patients’ experience with the hospitals and its clinics. Pulling data f
rom the hospital and clinics’ EMR applications, the portal solution gives patients
the ability to view their electronic visit summaries. Patients can also send a
copy to a personal HealthVault account, where the information can be stored or s
hared as desired with other healthcare professionals, family members and caregiv
ers.
Patients also can use their personal health information in HealthVault — including
medical history, medications, insurance and demographic information — to automati
cally populate the hospital’s registration forms before the next scheduled visit,
potentially saving time and improving the consistency of information entered. Th
e solution is being rolled out initially to over 20,000 emergency room patients
at Mason General. Tectura Corp., a Microsoft HealthVault Community Connect Solut
ion Provider, has collaborated on the MyMasonHealth implementation and provides
ongoing support.
Brooks Rehabilitation, one of the largest inpatient rehabilitation hospitals in
the country, has deployed HealthVault Community Connect to help build stronger c
onnections with its community of more than 2,000 referral sources in Florida and
south Georgia, and to help create a coordinated continuum of care as its patien
ts move from one care setting to the next.
“At Brooks, more than 97 percent of our hospital admissions come from referring ac
ute care hospitals, and after being discharged from the ER, a single stroke pati
ent, for example, can be placed in up to four different care settings within the
first 60 days of onset,” said Karen Green, chief information officer, Brooks. “We n
eeded a solution that facilitates the continuity of care within and beyond our w
alls, breaks down silos, and helps Brooks be more patient-centric. HealthVault C
ommunity Connect is helping us achieve our goals.”
Brooks Rehabilitation worked with Aspect, a Microsoft HealthVault Community Conn
ect Solution Provider, to launch Brooks Health Connect, a patient and provider p
ortal targeted initially at spinal cord and stroke patients, which is now expand
ing to focus on the broader Brooks patient population. Using HealthVault Communi
ty Connect to share information with patients and the referral community, Brooks
Health Connect is designed to help patients with life-changing conditions more
easily manage their healthcare over extended periods of time and help avoid read
mission to acute care facilities.
Additional early adopters of HealthVault Community Connect include Boston-based
Steward Health Care System, which plans to use the solution as part of its accou
ntable care organization (ACO) initiative, and PeaceHealth St. Joseph Medical Ce
nter in Bellingham, Wash., which is implementing the solution at the St. Joseph
Hospital Joint Center, an integrated hospital and community service line dedicat
ed to hip and knee joint replacement. With support from HealthVault Community Co
nnect Solution Provider Parker-Affirma, and PeaceHealth PHR vendor Congral LLC,
the Joint Center is implementing a comprehensive preregistration and discharge p
rocess selected for a Medicare-sponsored program aimed at proving the value of d
ischarge process best practices that can be replicated throughout the country’s he
althcare system.
“We’re excited by the diversity of health organizations adopting HealthVault Communi
ty Connect, and the variety of goals they have in using the solution,” said David
Cerino, general manager, Microsoft Health Solutions Group. “Empowering patients an
d physicians with information is fundamental to the transformation of healthcare
delivery and can yield benefits for any type of provider, from a multisite ACO
in a major metropolitan area to a 25-bed rural hospital.”
Microsoft has selected and trained six business and technology consulting organi
zations to sell, deploy, customize and support HealthVault Community Connect at
hospitals and health systems nationwide. These HealthVault Community Connect Sol
ution Providers were selected by Microsoft based on rigorous criteria, including
a strategic focus on healthcare; experience delivering IT projects in the provi
der segment; experience with HealthVault, SharePoint and Microsoft infrastructur
e technologies; and ability to deliver customer service and support. The organiz
ations that Microsoft selected are AAJ Technologies, Aspect Software Inc., Evolu
te Consolidated Holdings Inc., Parker-Affirma, Tectura and West Monroe Partners.
More information about each of these organizations can be found on Microsoft’s we
bsite.