patient records

Computer security experts have been warning for years that a malicious computer virus unleashed by hackers or a terrorist group could create havoc in the healthcare system. On Thursday, we got a look at the kind of problems that could lie ahead for the national health IT infrastructure as the Zotub worm hit Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center and quickly propagated across the health system's network, shutting down access to patient medical records at its facilities across New Hampshire. …

In time, the electronic health revolution may completely change the face of modern medicine, saving thousands of lives from preventable medical errors and increasing efficiencies to the point that out-of-control healthcare costs are finally brought back in line. In the last couple of years, however, the biggest beneficiaries have been the companies at heart of that transformation.

None have been as closely followed by Wall Street as Cerner, the Kansas City-based software company …

Despite the inherent logic of assigning every American a personal patient identification code to help manage their electronic medical record information, it is unlikely to happen, Government Computer Week reports. Newer proposals lean towards a decentralized approach to managing the data. Current thinking favors either a probabilistic approach, similar to that used by some search engines, or a record locator model, which would rely on indexes to organize detailed information on the location of patient records. Story

The state of Tennessee officially agreed to allow the state's Medicaid patients to participate in an ambitious electronic medical records project. The project, which is being sponsored by BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee, would create what is believed to be the largest network in the nation. The addition of 700,000 TennCare members is a key milestone in the project.

Officially headed by BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee subsidiary SharedHealth, the network is considered a major …