UnitedHealth Steps Into Personal Health Record Ring

The major players thus far in the personal health record (PHR) space are Microsoft and Google, which in the past year trotted out Microsoft HealthVault and Google Health in an attempt to direct the best place for people to store and share their health data in a digital format.

But UnitedHealth Group is among other vendors not interested in letting those industry giants claim all the limelight. The Minnesota-based managed health-care provider and insurance giant on Monday announced the beta version of its own PHR and portal, myOptumHealth, headquartered at www.myoptumhealth.com.

UnitedHealth's online PHR is open to anyone -- not just pre-established UnitedHealth clients -- and like some aspects of the Microsoft and Google offerings allows the user to access information on medical conditions, diseases and treatments. According to the Wall Street Journal, UnitedHealth will also use myOptumHealth to market its own products, including insurance.

Consumer-centric digital PHR platforms are still in their infancy, and watchdog groups like the nonprofit World Privacy Forum have criticized them for supposedly playing fast and loose with health-care regulations such as HIPAA. HIPAA regulations affect health-care providers, health insurers and anyone who administers health plans, but not the medical record itself, which has sparked an industry debate on whether PHR vendors are considered "covered entities" under the HIPAA definition.

Business critics of PHR have wondered how free-access PHRs can make money for vendors -- a question asked of Microsoft and Google last month at Everything Channel's Healthcare IT Summit in San Diego.

At the time, Google Vice President of Research and Special Initiatives Alfred Spector told Gartner analysts that the vendor viewed Google Health as an extension of the Google brand. Microsoft Senior Director of Global Consumer Health Strategy in the Health Solutions Group Grad Conn suggested Microsoft was positioning itself at the center of the health-care IT ecosystem and that "emerging business models come out of being at the center of ecosystems."

UnitedHealth remains the country's largest health insurer by market value, and on Monday it projected revenue of $85 to $86 billion and earnings of $2.90 to $3.15 per share in 2009. The company will host its annual investor day Tuesday; its shares overall have lost about 63 percent in 2008.