McKesson rounded out their Personal Health Solutions group offering this week by acquiring physician/patient communications startup RelayHealth.

RelayHealth, founded in 1999, allows patients to maintain their own
personal health records at home, keep track of prescriptions, set
appointments, get test results and talk to their doctors over a secure
connection with its webVisit service. About 18,000 health care workers,
600,000 patients and more than a dozen health plans use the network.

In addition to this acquisition, McKesson announced the formation of the Personal Health Solutions Group, to be run by Giovanni Colella, M.D., RelayHealth's former president and CEO.

In addition to RelayHealth, McKesson's personal health solutions
include in-home patient monitoring, Web portal technology, triage
software and personal emergency response systems, to name a few. The
full solution suite will include products and services from recently
acquired HealthCom Partners, LLC, which provides patient billing
solutions designed to simplify and enhance financial interactions
between healthcare providers and their patients.

The recent announcement of Continua Health Alliance included about a dozen different vendors and health care delivery organizations - notable in their absence were HIT vendors like McKesson. Clearly HIT vendors are investing heavily in the remote monitoring market; their lack of involvement in Continua speaks volumes about their product and go-to-market strategies.

UPDATE: Here's a follow-on story about the RelayHealth acquisition.