In a move to broaden the base of its rights-based Glide OS media sharing service, New York-based TransMedia has created a spin-off called Glide Health Corporation, which on Monday announced a partnership with Integrated Medical Professionals (IMP), a physicians group that with over a million patients.

Using technology licensed from TransMedia's Glide OS, a system for securely sharing data and applications across multiple operating systems and devices, Glide Health aspires to make medical records portable and easily accessible.

Shifting from paper to electronic medical records has long been cited as a way to improve access to information in the health system. Both Google and Microsoft have unveiled online medical records platforms, but the health industry has been slow to change.

"One of the things I think has been great about Glide Health is the grassroots support we've gotten from physicians," said Donald Leka, CEO of Glide Health Corporation and of TransMedia.

By support, Leka means not just endorsements but actual investments. "We've gotten a lot of physicians to invest in it," he said. "They're not just participating from a deployment standpoint but they're participating from an investment standpoint, too."

Leka says that IMP's physicians "are very much aware of the problems with the healthcare system," and that they appreciate Glide Health for its ability to work on variety of operating systems and devices.

Glide Health allows patients to enter their own medical history data, as audio or text, and to securely share that information with authorized medical professionals. It also synchronizes with doctor's Electronic Medical Records (EMR) platforms and allows for the secure exchange of patient records between different systems.

Deepak A. Kapoor, MD, chairman and CEO of IMP, said in a statement that he expects Glide Health will make patient data more accessible from mobile devices throughout the IMP heath care system and will help caregivers by presenting them with more complete medical histories for patients.

Glide Health supports on Android, Blackberry, iPhone, Palm Pre, Symbian and Windows Mobile devices, and Windows, Mac, Linux and Solaris desktops.

Glide's compatibility, insists Leka, is a "huge differentiator" that sets it apart. "How on earth can you deploy a platform like this to a million-plus consumers," he said, "if you have to standardize all those consumers on one device?"

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