Google announced that it would be working with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) on a pilot program that would let Medicare beneficiaries in Arizona and Utah import their claims data into Google Health.

Google recently enabled users of Google Health to share their medical records and other personal health information with trusted contacts, in a move that would allow the solution to become more robust in its competition against Microsoft and health-care-specific Web sites such as WebMD.

"The pilot is one of several CMS programs to test out how the government can give beneficiaries secure access to their medical data online." Missy Krasner, product marketing manager for Google Health, wrote on the corporate blog. "Before I came to Google, I worked at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which houses CMS. At the time, the idea of giving beneficiaries access to their own Medicare claims data in electronic format was just that — an idea. Today, it's becoming a reality."

The U.S. government plans to devote more than $19 billion dollars of the stimulus package to Health IT-related projects.

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