Reflecting on Progress

We are hosting the second HealthVault Solutions conference June 9 &10 in Bellevue.   The amount of effort and activity on our part -- and on the part of our partners who will showcase their web applications at the event is truly remarkable.    As a startup guy most of my career -- this infectious enthusiasm and passion by all the folks involved -- generates the endorphins that make startups and innovation so much fun.

For those that know me -- my primary focus is always on the next problem, on identifying and working on the things we can and must do better and not looking back at the accomplishments or progress.    As I prepare for this event however -- what really strikes me is the progress we, along with our partners (and others) are making towards the vision of empowering consumers and physicians to use the Internet effectively as a tool to improve health.   

A year ago -- we had working code and a beta environment for our very early partners.    Nothing available to the public.  Lots of talk and ideas here and in the industry at large - but not much tangible.   Today we have over 30 web health applications that copy data to/from HealthVault and enable users to reuse their health information in new ways without the burden of re-entering it all the time.    We also have 50 personal health devices from weight scales to glucometers to peak flow meters and more that connect directly to HealthVault -- which makes it so much easier for people to use this information to understand how to stay well or to use it in communicating with their physician.    In addition to our efforts -- Google Health is also now available to consumers.

Because of how HUGE the health eco-system is -- trillions of dollars, hundreds of millions of consumers/patients, hundreds of thousands of physicians, thousands of hospitals, hundreds of insurance plans and so on -- progress can be hard to notice in the early phases.   First -- we can celebrate the many partners that saw the vision early and have already built connections with HealthVault and we love them.    But I can also see a big difference in the conversation we are having with stakeholders in the eco-system and it is evolving from the tire-kicking phase to the "how can I get involved to help my business or my customers" phase....which to me indicates momentum is building and building fast.

Every once in a while it is nice to look back and recognize that the vision we have around HealthVault -- of building a consumer-centered health platform -- which lots of stakeholders will use to help consumers and themselves -- is really working!   Now, back to working on the things we can do better.