There's no doubt record keeping of any kind will have problems, and that there is no one "cure-all" solution to the country's health care problems.

But in this day and age of travel and the ability to access immediate emergency medical care almost anywhere in the nation and a good many parts of the world, I would rather have my medical records electronically accessible than not.

Most people I've talked to are worried about insurance companies using the data to discriminate / rate policies. Before we do this, we need to have the resolve the risk pool issue.

1) I don't think electronic records were intended as a cure-all for the pitiful state of the health care industry in the USA.

2) As for electronic banking, I was a beta user of a rollout of an electronic banking system of a prominent local bank. It was far from perfect, but now is highly improved.

3) Electronic health records is an area where extreme accuracy is absolutely essential. Implementation of this kind of system should be left to only the very best of professionals in their field of expertise (such as you & Randy).

4) I see a good number of doctors on a regular basis. Mistakes such as the one you mentioned where your doctor erroneously identified you as a mother, happen fairly regularly to doctors who do not use any electronic records.

5) Absolute perfection is unattainable with ANY system.

6) Anything worthwhile is never easy.

I used to work in a hospital in IT.

I would be concerned about data security, first and foremost, as HIPPA (the healthcare privacy pole star) is all about keeping the network secure on the "inside" from access on the "outside". Extranets aside, security will be more "added on" than "built in".