Microsoft Corporation and Kaiser Permanente, the largest managed care organization in the United States, have united powers to create a special pilot program according to which patients can have a control upon their health records.

This is not the only provider of such patient information exchange program. Revolution Health Group LLC and Google Inc have also created such a product under the name of Google Health, launched in February this year.

The mechanism of the program is very simple. Kaiser will send to Microsoft’s HealthVault the personal health records of each patient, including patients’ test results, prescriptions and immunizations. Through this Microsoft’s Web-based service, patients will be able “to store and manage medical data from a variety of websites and selectively share information with them,” as reported by The Wall Street Journal on Monday. The program’s advantage will consist of improvement of the medical care quality and additional costs.

For the moment, the existing electronic health care records are updated by health providers and insurers. The patients have access to their records through the Internet, but do not have control over the data there. Therefore, in case a customer changes insurers, health providers or home to another part of the country, the initial data is lost and the transfer does not operate.

At the beginning, the program will be available only for 156,000 employees of the healthcare provider until November. If successful, the program will be enlarged for use to the Kaiser’s 8.7 million members from nine states.