How to share health records with other HealthVault users or other applications

If you are the custodian of a health record, you can share some or all health information with other HealthVault users or programs. As a HealthVault customer who has custodian rights, you determine who can view and change information in your health record. Some ways that you can share information are as follows:

• Your spouse or partner. If your spouse or partner has a HealthVault account, you can share the ownership of the family’s health records.
• Personal trainer. You can provide access to your exercise logs for your personal trainer.
• Hospital. You can enable your hospital to upload discharge instructions. 
• Pediatrician. You can enable a pediatrician to view and update your child’s immunization records together with any other family records.

Levels of sharing

There are three levels of sharing for a health record. They are as follows:

• View. The person has read-only access to the information on the Home and Health Information page. The person cannot view the Sharing page or the History of Changes page. This is the lowest level of access and is also available only for a specific time. 
• View and modify. The person can add, view, or edit health information or record profile information. However, the person cannot view sharing status or history for any item. This access is also available only for a specific time. 
• Act as custodian. The person can view and change health, record profile, and sharing status information. The person can also view the history of all changes. This is the highest level of access, and there is no time limit for this access.
  
  Important With "Act as custodian" access, another person could violate your privacy, and you could even lose access to your health records. Make sure that you grant such access only to people whom you trust. 

How to share health records

Sharing information with another person is as easy as sending an invitation to another HealthVault user. To do this, follow these steps to send the invitation.

1. In the navigation pane, cick the Sharing icon.
   
   
2. Click Share Health information with someone you trust.
   
3. On the invitation page, type the recipient’s email address.
   
4. Select the share level that you want.
   
5. Select the kinds of information that you want to share. By default, all information types are selected. When you grant someone access to all health information, any information that is added in the future is also shared. If you grant access only to specific information types, you must send a new invitation to share new information types with the invitee.
   
6. Set the expiration for a specific month, day, and year, or select No expiration.
   
7. Add an optional note, such as the reason that the customer is granting access to the person, and then click Send Invitation.