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From Francine Hardaway at Stealthmode

I’m a futurist, so I make predictions every day. It doesn’t take New
Year’s to force me to think ahead. But since you asked…

1) We will move further, although slowly, toward electronic medical
records. Both the Federal Government and a number of state
governments, including Arizona, are trying to get there, and facing
usability, privacy, and adoption issues. Everyone knows health care is
along overdue for automation; I’ve written about it many times before.
The technology exists to put your medical records on a smart card that
you could carry in your wallet, which could be swiped in a doctor’s
office to help you check in, make appointments, or give your history
to a new specialist. But the pieces don’t (yet) fit together,and HIPAA
makes that difficult. So do the providers of the EMR software, who
seem to think that gray screens are all that doctors need.