Today Health Partners unveils a remote diagnosis service, called Virtuwell, that’s available to Minnesotans. It’s an interactive web site that walks you through a series of questions – from general to specific. The couple of test ailments I tried took 5-10 minutes to get through the questions. Then apparently if you want to submit your responses to a nurse – they will get back to you within 30 minutes with a diagnosis. It costs $40 – but apparently comes with a money back guarantee.

Those of us who attended the Blandin Broadband conference earlier this month might recognize this scenario – Robert Stephens painted a similar picture. As he said, it’s an obvious extension of the Minute Clinic – a great Minnesota innovation.

As I said, I tried out the interactive tool (although I did not send my made up responses to a nurse). The questions are straight forward and include pictures, which is nice. So if you think you have the Chicken Pox, you can see what they look like to cross check your own suspicious marks. I like the tools as a busy mom – but the Minneapolis St Paul Business Journal found that corporations like it too…

In announcing the Virtuwell launch, HealthPartners quoted executives at major employers saying they, too, liked the service because it will help workers conveniently handle routine health issues.

“When an employee has a minor medical condition, they want to get better quickly with little inconvenience, the least down time and at the lowest cost,” said Kathy Prondzinski, corporate benefits design director at Andersen Corp.