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PHOENIX — A pilot program that will allow Medicare patients to make their medical records available online will cut down on paperwork headaches and help prevent unnecessary procedures, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt said Wednesday.

"You can't have value-driven health care without having consumer choice, without giving people control over their own health-care decisions and without having them pursue value," Leavitt said by telephone during a news conference at the State Capitol.

Leavitt helped announce the four companies that will take part in the Medicare PHR Choice Pilot, which launches in January in Arizona and Utah. The program will allow Medicare patients to have a personal health records (PHR) company maintain their records and provide them to doctors, as directed by the patient.

"If you can log on to the Internet, you should be able to get to your health records," said Kerry Weems, acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, the federal agency that administers Medicare and Medicaid.

Weems' agency is partnering in the yearlong pilot with Google Health, HealthTrio, NoMoreClipboard.com and PassportMD. Depending on the company and Medicare plan, each partner will offer free or low-cost services for patients and connections with health-care providers, pharmacies and other sources of health information.

Weems said personal health records companies help patients to keep track of medical procedures, medicine and health care online, especially if they move to a different state or lose records.

If the pilot program succeeds, Weems said he hopes to expand it to other states and have approximately a million users by 2012.

Leavitt said the efficiencies created by such a system could help lower the cost of health care in the long run.

"PHR applications are practically unlimited," Leavitt said. "They have strong potential to pay great dividends for beneficiaries."

Chris Cummiskey, Arizona's chief information officer and director of the Government Information Technology Agency, said Gov. Janet Napolitano is excited about the program's potential benefits.