During a discussion of personal health records (PHRs) at TEPR+ today, James Mault, MD, director of new products and business development for Microsoft's Health Solutions Group stated numerous times that HealthVault and Google Health are not competitors--both services are fighting non-consumption of personal health records. While the quip is perhaps true given that PHR adoption rates are still in the low single digits, Mault also indicated he has a fundamentally different conception of what HealthVault is vs., perhaps, Google Health.

"There are a lot of misconceptions about HealthVault," Mault said. "It is a platform. It is not a personal health record. It's a data repository on which thousands of developers are building applications and services right now."

Microsoft's HealthVault serves as the platform on which at least one mobile PHR is already built: AllOne Mobile. Mault, however, said AllOne Mobile is just the beginning of mobile applications and services built on the HealthVault platform.

"You are going to see a number of mobile applications going live on this platform in the coming weeks and months," Mault announced. Following the session I asked Mault whether he and the HealthVault team have approached Microsoft's Windows Mobile team to get the mobile developers in-house thinking about leveraging this platform, too. Mault's response: You bet.