Resources for Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA)

Hazardous to Your Privacy?

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The Cleveland Clinic, the renowned nonprofit medical center, has kept electronic records of its patients for some time. But despite the easy transport of everything digital, by and large those records have been as immobile as scrawled doctor's notes stored in manila folders. And, in their traditional form, the clinic can't view records of patients who visit outside practitioners.

"When doctors have all the information related to the patient, they make better decisions," said the clinic's chief information officer, C. Martin Harris. "There's also a cost benefit -- if doctors don't have the right information, they may [needlessly] repeat tests."

To make that possible, and point the way for a nationwide system enabling patients to control their personal medical records, the clinic announced last week that it was participating in a pilot project with a company that's very used to moving and sharing data: Google.

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