The Department of Health and Human Services is reaching out to third-party personal health record applications to extend its Internet-based family history health tool.
U.S. Surgeon General Regina Benjamin this week announced the first such collaboration, which aims to link HHS' My Family Health Portrait to Microsoft's HealthVault.
My Family Health Portrait lets users create family health history profiles, which users store on their own computers.
The Microsoft arrangement will let consumers integrate the health history information stored in their profiles into a personal HealthVault account, according to HHS. That information can then be shared with healthcare providers that link to HealthVault.
HHS said its health history tool will expand to include other third-party applications in the coming months.
The Cancer Biomedical Informatics Grid, located at the National Cancer Institute, hosts My Family Health Portrait.
The first version of the tool debuted in 2004. An updated, standards-compliant version of My Family Health Portrait was released in January 2009.
