Free Republic

Note: The following text is a quote: http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=53857 Obama Announces Joint Virtual Lifetime Electronic Record By Donna Miles American Forces Press Service WASHINGTON, April 9, 2009 – President Barack Obama announced plans today to create a joint virtual lifetime electronic record that will improve care and services to transitioning veterans by smoothing the flow of medical records between the Defense and Veterans Affairs departments. The concept, long advocated by officials in both departments, is considered a major step toward improving the delivery of care and services to servicemembers transitioning from military to civilian life. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and...

SNIPPET: "(CNSNews.com) – The Senate Committee on Aging last week offered a preview of the government’s future role in health care, showing how Americans will interact with doctors and other health care providers. The demonstration offers a glimpse at an overlooked effect of health care reform. The effort, loosely called e-Health or e-Care..." SNIPPET: "Kaushal, testifying before the committee via video conference due travel disruptions caused by the Icelandic volcano, said that Medicare needs to begin reimbursing for e-Care technologies so that doctors will have an incentive to purchase and install them." SNIPPET: "Despite the high praise and high hopes...

DR. WAX is a family physician based in Mullica Hill, N.J. He reports having no conflicts of interest related to this editorial.I consider myself a computer literate physician. In high school, I taught myself to program in BASIC on my Atari 800, which had a whopping 48K RAM. In college, I transitioned to the Apple Macintosh. At medicine morning rounds, I saw the Palm Pilot Pro and had to have one. I've been desktop and mobile computing ever since. I had spent the past 6 years investigating electronic health record (EHR) systems when, finally, on Black Friday 2009, I took...