iTriage, Microsoft HealthVault partner for PHR mobility

December already was a huge month for iTriage, as it previously announced its acquisition by insurance giant Aetna.

But it just got bigger, as the mobile app developer debuted a new free iPhone app that will allow users to access Microsoft HealthVault patient health records from the iPhone. An Android version is due out in a few weeks, company officials say.

The iTriage app already allows users to check symptoms, locate physicians and other caregivers, research medications and medical conditions. Now iTriage execs want to take the lead in consumer-oriented, mobile-enabled PHRs.

"PHRs offer consumers a great way to monitor their health," company co-founder Peter Hudson said in a statement this week. "Our iTriage vision includes being the mobile aggregator for multiple PHRs in the future."

He may be on the right track, according to mHealthWatch, which predicts that "the integration with PHRs will round out [iTriage's] functionality to create a pretty powerful end-to-end mHealth consumer application, with HealthVault integration likely the first of many."

iTriage currently allows users to access their records in the soon-to-be defunct Google Health PHR system; viewing, editing and entering data in the Google system will be discontinued on Jan. 1, 2012, with only transfer of information extended through 2013.

One intriguing aside: If iTriage is able to convince just a percentage of its 3 million customers to create or transfer PHRs, that would create a massive databank in which its new parent company Aetna likely would have some interest.

To learn more:
- check out iTriage's press release
- read the SiliconANGLE piece
- dig into mHealthWatch's post
- get more detail from ITProPortal