Although unlikely to make as much of a splash in healthcare as the recent launches of the Palm Pre and the Apple 3G S, T-Mobile has announced the July availability of MyTouch 3G, the second phone on Google’s Android operating system. Read »

Google’s much ballyhooed entry into personal medical data management became a reality this month with the unveiling of Google Health. Not unlike services from other companies—including Microsoft—Google Health promises a place to safely store personal medical information and to access forums, disease and condition information, and wellness programs. Read »

What do you get when Sprint and Clearwire strike a deal to merge their next generation wireless broadband businesses to form a new wireless communications company? Another company named Clearwire, plus interest from industry giants—Intel, Google, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, and Bright House Networks—to the tune of $3.2 billion. Insiders claim the new entity will make the first nationwide mobile WiMAX network a reality, delivering a true mobile broadband experience for consumers, business and healthcare organizations alike. Read »

I’ve been impressed with Google since its inception. At a time when others were scrambling to define themselves and drum up ad space value by clogging their pages with filler content—weather, stock quotes, headlines, localized “community” fare—Google was the only one that seemed to understand that users searching for answers don’t want to be distracted by a home page that resembles a fire sale catalog. Read »

The release of new software enabling personal medical devices to stream data results into and out of Google Health accounts, or other personal health records, marks a major play by Google in the emerging PHR space. The software, which was rolled out by Google, IBM and the Continua Health Alliance in early February, competes with Microsoft’s HealthVault offering and marks the search giant’s next step forward, just as the federal government prepares to throw funding at health IT initiatives. Read »

The FCC has ruled in favor of allowing new kinds of broadband devices to operate in unused television spectrum. The decision follows efforts by Google, Microsoft, Motorola and others to get “white spaces” in television broadcast signals converted into unlicensed spectrum for long-distance wireless broadband applications when cable converts to a digital signal in February. Read »

“By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.” It isn’t often that I get to quote a witch—fictional or otherwise—but the phrase blazed a trail to the front of my mind as soon as I got wind of Congressional Budget Office director Peter Orszag’s recent declaration that federal intervention is necessary if the United States hopes to advance nationwide healthcare IT adoption. At a House panel hearing in July, Mr. Orszag claimed allowing the free market to evolve into using electronic health records would take too long. A better solution, apparently, is for Big Government to muscle its way further into the process, promoting the use of health IT through the time-honored application of subsidies and penalties. Read »

I’ve devoted a fair amount of column space to developments concerning efforts by Microsoft, Google and others to usher Personal Health Records into an era of common practice. We’ve weighed the privacy and security concerns, evaluated the competitive landscape, measured the potential value of strategic partnerships with major drugstore chains—even paid close attention when payers started getting into the mix, endorsing their contender of choice through a flood of announcements. Read »

Of all the companies offering personal health records on the Web, Microsoft and Google are the biggest and best positioned to hasten the adoption of electronic health records, a move broadly hailed as critical to both improving the quality of medical care and slashing costs. With Microsoft throwing its hat in the ring last October—and Google weighing in last month—the battle for market share between the tech titans is well underway. Read »