The new healthcare initiative launched today by AT&T, Microsoft and Covisint is intended to enable patients to take more control over their medical care, improve that care at a lower cost and communicate more easily with their doctors. But it is also designed to promote the kind of remote health-monitoring that will increase data network traffic as well.

The new eHealth information exchange grew out of work AT&T did with the state of Tennessee for its eHealth initiative, and other work as well, said Diane Turcan, a nurse and former hospital CEO who is now director of health care marketing for AT&T. Consumers can now get access to Microsoft HealthVault, a combination of software and services that stores personal health information, enter their own information, and enable their physicians to gain access through the AT&T Healthcare Community Online, a virtual private network-based portal from AT&T. Covisint provides its On-Demand Healthcare Platform, which combined with AT&T’s services enables secure exchange of information among a patient multiple doctors.

“This is particularly helpful doing health management or disease management when you are using devices, because the information can be put right into health records, where it is viewed by the physician,” Turcan said. “If I have diabetes and I have a bluetooth-enabled glucometer, it takes my blood sugar, and that information goes into my health record, where there are applications that let me trend that. If I am going out of range or barely within range, my physician can then help me manage that by looking at food, medications and exercise, all of which play a part in blood sugar.”

Used on a widespread basis, this kind of health care would be more preventative, eliminating the need for office visits or emergency room trips, thus making health care more affordable, Turcan said. By enabling the exchange of information among multiple doctors, the eHealth information exchange can help coordinate the care of older patients, with multiple doctors, or others with chronic illnesses. The eHealth information exchange also can be used for doing electronic prescriptions, sharing diagnostic images such as X-rays, MRIs and CT scans; maintaining patient profiles and other information and streamlining administrative processes, all of which can make health care more cost-effective.

Consumers can start at any time by logging onto www.healthvault.com, Turcan said. AT&T and Microsoft will both be marketing the new service, and they are hoping patients and physicians alike will be drawn to it. AT&T’s commercial interest is in the data transport revenues these communications would drive, Turcan said.

“We would hope they [patients and physicians] would want to become members of the health care community online – those services are available to members of the ehealth service that we offer,” Turcan said. “We are hoping more providers would see the value of this.”