The Department of Defense (DoD) is piloting applications that allow soldiers, veterans, and their families to manage their personal health records online. Patients at the Madigan Army Medical Center in Tacoma, Washington can now use applications developed by Google and Microsoft to control their own medical information.

Both software tools provide online access to the patient's medications, allergies, lab and radiology results, data regarding past visits, upcoming appointments, and inpatient/outpatient documentation. The department’s Military Health System (MHS) launched the program, called MiCare, as a way for patients to take more responsibility for the own health care and improve the interactions between patients and providers.

The MiCare project at Madigan is one in a series of other pilot programs conducted by MHS and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) in a coordinated effort to move all Americans to electronic health records. In October, TRICARE, the nationwide health plan that covers 9.2 million active-duty and retired military personnel and their families, and CMS began testing a personal health record system provided by HealthTrio in South Carolina. CMS pilots of Google Health, HealthTrio, and two other programs are also scheduled to start in early 2009 in Arizona and Utah.

Peter Neupert, corporate vice president for Microsoft’s health solutions group, told nextgov that using the Internet to access health records will be beneficial to military families who frequently move.

“Providing one location to store and manage health data can make a significant impact on military families on the move, for retirees seeking care, and for family health managers left behind as a parent is called to duty,” said Neupert.

Privacy and data security of health records remains a serious concern for patients and the military. MHS officials said that patients have complete control over who looks at the data and what information they see. The information will be protected under new guidelines developed by the Markle Foundation with the aid of Microsoft, Google, and other vendors to establish the standards for keeping sensitive information private.

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