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This web site, smartmoney.com has just posted an article, Can Electronic Medical Records Save You Money?, (more…)

From and Article printed in the NY Times February 10th written by Steve Lohr

“In his press conference Monday night, President Obama went out of his way to explain why that money belonged in the economic stimulus package. It is, he said, a job-creating investment in both the present and the future that will improve the quality of care and save lives.

“But in a letter delivered Tuesday to the White House and Congressional offices, 50 of the nation?s leading experts in electronic health records ? most of them physicians themselves warned (more…)

More and more of us are storing our records electronically. Even if you back up your computer records and files to removable media, they still aren’t safe. That is why we offer the FireKing MediaVault HD. MediaVault HD is the last line of defense. MediaVault HD is a fireproof container holding one or two 250 GB external hard drives. The MediaVault HD is specially designed to automatically backup and protect your valuable data from the fire and theft. (more…)

March 30,? HIPAA rules compliance enforcement is getting more attention. This article in COMPUTERWORLD describes an audit of a major medical center in Atlanta, Georgia and includes a list of 42 questions that the auditors posed. Some years ago when electronic medical records were in the news and even before personal computers were available, a Physician mentioning a storm that had recently caused a wide area power blackout, said that he planned to continue to have all of his patients’ records readable by flash or candle light.

March 24,? Winona, Minnesota is a small community not too far from Minneapolis. It was from there that The PBS News Hour with Jim Lehrer did an in depth story about a community wide electronic medical records programs that made patient medical information available to all the usual players, health care professionals and aides, and possibly for the first time anywhere, directly to individual patients or guardians through the internet. If we understood the story correctly, patients can even update appropriate parts of their personal records

February 26, Go ogle and the Cleveland Clinic have just announced a program to put patient medical records on line. An article in SC Magazine raises some of the ramifications of such a program, with emphasis on privacy and HIPAA.

The magazine article begins: “In a move some say could compromise the privacy of hospital patients, Google has announced it will begin a pilot test of an online health service that will store the medical records of several thousand Cleveland Clinic medical center patients.”

February 27, Another report on this issue is found in the ARMA International Informanagement NewsWire

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February 27, 11 PM Here is another story from Wired Magazine. Google to Store Patients’ Health Records Note the heavy emphasis on patient rights and privacy.

February 28, 9:41 PM Google drops another shoe on its plan to let patients access their own medical records on the internet while keeping ownership and control.Here is the start of the article in today’s New Work Times

“ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Google Inc. won’t sell ads to support a new Internet service that stores personal medical information, CEO Eric Schmidt said Thursday in the search giant’s first detailed comments about a venture that has raised privacy concerns.

“Schmidt described Google Health as a platform for users to manage their own records, such as medical test results and prescriptions. It would be accessed with a user name and password, just like a Google e-mail account, and could be called up on any computer with an Internet connection.

“A primary benefit, Schmidt said, is the portability of records from one health care provider to the next. He repeatedly said no data would be shared without the consumer’s consent.

”Our model is that the owner of the data has control over who can see it,” Schmidt said at the annual conference of the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society. ”And trust, for Google, is the most important currency on the Internet.”

February 29 11AM This is more inside baseball about the economics of online medical records but everything affects something. From the New York Times :? By Saul Hansell

Google no doubt would like to help you live a long and healthy life. But let?s be clear: the company?s new medical records system is largely about advertising, especially ads by drug companies.

When announcing the long-delayed Google Health service at a convention of healthcare technologists in Orlando, Eric Schmidt, Google?s chief executive, said that at first there would be no ads on the service.

He compared it to Google News, a popular service that to date doesn?t carry any advertising. (That isn?t because Google doesn?t want ads on its news site. But putting them there would be controversial, because the site links to articles on sites with which Google doesn?t have any business relationship.)

March 9 10PM Another major computer systems magazine, NETWORKWORLD, has written about HIPAA concerns about unsecure confidential patient medical records. The article starts:

“Healthcare organizations feel under increasing attack from the Internet, while security incidents involving insiders and disappearing laptops with sensitive data are piling up. On top of that, there’s now the prospect of a surprise audit from the federal government agency in charge of overseeing the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act security and privacy rules.”? Click here to read the whole article.