IBM and Google on Thursday unveiled software that allows people to stream their health data drawn from personal medical devices such as heart rate monitors to their Google Health records.

 

The data, once uploaded, can be used by medical professionals to more closely assess the current condition of patients and offer feedback on treatment without an office visit.

 

Medical professionals have been home-monitoring patients for vital data such as blood pressure, heart rate, and other data gleaned from monitoring devices for many years.

 

But that kind of service is offered almost exclusively to the very ill or patients suffering from chronic diseases, and it requires specialized and expensive equipment.

 

IBM’s software, which was developed in conjunction with Continua Health Alliance, extends that monitoring facility to the general public using open-standards based software and routers in the home.

 

“IBM and Google are making that medical communication cloud bigger and populating it with a wider range of monitoring devices,” said Charles King, principal analyst with Pund-IT Research.

 

IBM hopes that open standards will spur the availability of new health monitoring devices that can communicate through broadband routers in the home.

 

“Open standards are just going to accelerate new models and new opportunities for individuals to have better care experiences,” said Dan Pelino, general manager of IBM's Healthcare & Life Sciences Industry group.

 

The joint effort by IBM and Google is related to a larger industry move to create a nationwide health care IT network.

 

The medical industry has been notoriously slow to clear the way for a coherent health IT network despite a sustained effort by former president George W. Bush.

 

As a result a national health IT network has not attracted much in the way of commercial investment.

 

The stimulus bill currently being debated on Capitol Hill includes funds for an open standards-based health network that would allow for the electronic transfer of patents’ health records.

 

Supporters are hoping that such a network would “stimulate” commercial investment, and of course jobs, in health IT.

 

In the meantime companies such as Google, IBM, Intel, and Microsoft are carving out manageable pieces of the larger problem such as device monitoring and retrofitting them with standards-based IT solutions.