You ought to know by now that the Google Health service will be terminated from January 1, 2012 onwards, with one more year left on the calendar for you to transfer data out to a different platform. Well, Microsoft has rushed to your aid this time around, offering solution to your woes by detailing a migration process so that your entire Google Health data can be transferred over in a streamlined process to Microsoft’s HealthVault. Check out the detailed guide in the extended post, and we wonder whether Google’s PowerMeter will have any such similar ‘rescue packages’ in the works.1. How USERS can move their Google Health information to HealthVault
The great news here is that the Google team has been working with us to ensure that migration is as simple and painless as possible. Google is based on the CCR standard, and HealthVault has the ability to import CCR-based documents, so it’s a pretty straightforward deal.
Google has detailed instructions for moving your profile data into HealthVault here.
For now, the process involves downloading your Google information as a special file called a “CCR” and then uploading that file to HealthVault where we’ll incorporate it into a new record there. It might make sense to create your HealthVault account first at http://healthvault.com. The one thing to note is that you’ll have to move your “Files” separately from the rest of your information. To do this, just save the files to your desktop and then re-upload them using the “Add” button on the HealthVault Documents page.
The really cool thing is that, within a week or so, Google is launching a “one click” (well ok, a few clicks) transfer of both the CCR information and files using the Direct project secure messaging protocol. As soon as that’s ready, they’ll have instructions on their own health pages, and I’ll post a note here on the blog as well.
2. How DEVELOPERS can migrate their Google Health solutions to HealthVault
HealthVault was created so that developers could build great applications — there’s a ton of documentation and reference materials on our MSDN site. From there, you can also download our .NET SDK and be running a “hello world” application against our test site within just a few minutes. That’s a great way to get your head around the platform, but it doesn’t mean you have to use .NET to integrate with HealthVault. There are open source integration libraries for just about every platform around (did I mention iOS and WP7?). A quick search will get you there — drop me a note if you don’t find the one you’re looking for.
If your application integrates with Google by sending and retrieving CCR documents, you’ll find that converting it to work with HealthVault should be pretty painless. We can accept CCR uploads as well; users have the option to extract the individual items out into their record and/or leave them as discrete documents. You can also use platform-provided transforms to fetch information in CCR form as well.
A more interactive application will likely require a bit more work — but we’re here to help. For business stuff, our BD team at hvbd@microsoft.com is the way to start.