CLEVELAND – The Cleveland Clinic is piloting the use of a personal health record system with Microsoft's HealthVault, a Web-based personal health platform.

The short-term pilot, begun November 3, is the first in the country to follow multiple diseases in the clinical delivery setting using multiple at-home devices such as glucometers, heart rate monitors, weight scales and blood pressure monitors, according to Cleveland Clinic officials.

The pilot will be a physician-driven, invitation-only opportunity offered to a group of Cleveland Clinic PHR users in the areas of diabetes, hypertension and heart failure, clinic officials said. Cleveland Clinic plans to enroll approximately 400 patients and aims to demonstrate that the program will enable patients and physicians to better manage and track chronic diseases from home, using the patientís own computer.

"As the prevalence of chronic disease rises at an alarming rate in the United States, the strain on our nation's economy and healthcare system can not be relieved without the creation of innovative, cost-effective solutions that involve patients in proactively managing their healthcare," said C. Martin Harris, MD, chief information officer at Cleveland Clinic. "At Cleveland Clinic, we strive to participate in and help to advance the national dialogue around a more efficient and effective national healthcare system. This pilot is intended to demonstrate that utilization of our comprehensive PHR system can empower patients and physicians to better communicate and manage chronic conditions, improve efficiencies and hopefully lower costs."

Patients will be provided HealthVault-enabled digital devices, such as blood pressure monitors and glucometers, and asked to perform regular health monitoring. By connecting the device to their home computers, their health information will be uploaded, with their consent, to a personal HealthVault account controlled by them and then sent to their Cleveland Clinic MyChart account, according to Harris. This data will create an online log and will be available to each patient's physician. Data sent from a patient's HealthVault account to MyChart can't be changed or altered in any way.