Two weeks after Google has officially launched its long-awaited Google Health, a product enabling users to upload and store medical records from many sources and get relevant information, Microsoft Corp and Kaiser Permanente, the biggest U.S. health maintenance organization announced they are working on a patient information exchange pilot program that would give patients more control over their health records.

More exactly, data kept in Kaiser’s personal health records, including patients’ test results, prescriptions and immunizations will be transferred in a secure way to Microsoft’s HealthVault, a Web site similar to Google Health, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.

This initiative is intended to give patients more control and access to their medical information and also to lower health-care costs by allowing consumers make better, more informed choices about their healthcare.

The new program will initially be open to only the 156,000 employees of the Oakland, California-based healthcare provider, the Wall Street Journal said. The program will run until November and if it survives, it will be offered to Kaiser's 8.7 million members in 9 states and the District of Columbia.

Both Microsoft’s Health Vault and Google’s Google Health face serious criticism from privacy advocacy groups, which have already expressed their concerns over the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, which governs medical privacy but which might not cover information stored with Google and Microsoft.

Also, many patients are still skeptical about sharing their private medical information for fear they might get in the wrong hands and their personal life might be affected one way or the other.

How well this kind of programs will be embraced by the general population remains to be seen. In a world where the computer has become irreplaceable, I think more and more people will forget about privacy issues and access these programs trying this way to ease their life and reduce the time dedicated to deal with their health problems.