Microsoft stomps on smokers

Reuters

STOP PUFFING: Kiwi firm Healthphone is teaming up with Microsoft to help smokers quit using text messages.

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The alliance between Auckland software firm Healthphone and Microsoft has born its first fruit, with the two companies teaming up to create a text-message service that will encourage smokers in the United States to kick the habit.

Smokers will be able to sign up to receive personalised text messages throughout the day encouraging them to quit, or text a number to get back instant advice on beating cravings.

The service, called Stomp, will be launched early next year and will be one of the first interactive applications that will be made available to people who register their details with Microsoft's HealthVault website. Healthphone will retain all the revenues.

HealthVault is a highly ambitious attempt by Microsoft to revolutionise the medical information market by creating a website, www.healthvault.com where consumers can upload, store and share their own electronic medical records, and search for health information.

Till now, attempts to create standardised electronic patient records have tended to be driven from within the health sector, by government agencies and healthcare providers.

HealthVault users can give doctors and others permission to access medical information they have uploaded to the site, by e-mail. Critics have questioned Microsoft's ability to adequately protect the privacy of personal information in HealthVault.

Hospitals and health insurers in the US, which may be important to its commercial success, have not yet embraced the concept, according to US reports.

Healthphone has developed its own web-based software for handling electronic patient records, Concordia, which it has sold to Mercy Hospice in Auckland.

But chief executive Debbi Gillotti says Microsoft's "consumer- centric" strategy echoes Healthphone's own mission to let people manage their personal wellbeing.

Ms Gillotti turned heads in April when she was appointed chief executive of the Auckland firm, which has more than 60 staff.

Based in Seattle, she was previously director of partner strategy for Microsoft's public sector business worldwide and is a former chief information officer of Starbucks and battery giant Duracell.

Healthphone has signed an agreement with Microsoft to be its "global lead solutions" partner with respect to community care and the management of chronic health conditions.

Matt Hector-Taylor, Healthphone's chief strategy officer, says Microsoft is in the health market for the "long haul" and it is early days for HealthVault.

"There is a lot of sector change that is going to happen in the US, and Microsoft coming out as a player with HealthVault shows it has got the strongest strategy."

Healthphone says a trial of Stomp in New Zealand that involved 1700 people found the text messages raised the proportion of smokers who claimed not to have smoked six weeks after quitting the habit from 13 per cent to 28 per cent.

- © Fairfax NZ News