Right now I’m at 35,000 feet, winging my way across the Pacific towards Oahu on a family vacation we’ve all been looking forward to for a long time now. This’ll be our first time to Ko Olina and I’m totally looking forward to sitting on the beach drinking, reading, sleeping and occasionally doing something ambitious like building a sand castle or trying the stand-up paddle boards. Can’t wait!

The only downside of a beach vacation for those of us with northern European heritage: I’ll be sunburned before I finish checking in at the front desk. Yes, I’ll put on sunscreen, and wear silly Australian sun gear --- but it won’t matter. My folks have both had to have bits and pieces of their skin checked out; the same is clearly in my future.

Enter SkinScan --- a really innovative HealthVault-enabled Windows Phone app from the folks at mySkin. SkinScan makes it really easy to:

• Capture images of moles and other blemishes with your smartphone’s camera;
• Answer a brief questionnaire to determine if the lesion is high risk or not;
• Upload that information to HealthVault, so you can watch how the mole progresses over time and share the information with dermatologists or other caregivers; and
• Even send the data to a live “skin scientist” that will provide you with an expert opinion.

Skin care is one of those things where the ability to monitor changes over time is crucially important. Combining the convenience of mobile with the permanence and sharing capabilities of the cloud just makes fantastic sense. When you get a new phone next year, no problem --- your history will still be there in HealthVault, ready to help you answer the question, “is this mole changing?”

Yeah, while lots of people keep talking about personal health, the really great ones are helping to MAKE IT HAPPEN! Kudos to the mySkin team on a super-exciting, super-USEFUL, innovative app. Well done!

PS… A version for the iPhone is on the way as well; you can leave your email address at the bottom of the page here to get notified when it’s published in the App Store.

And now --- over and out for a few days.