Finally 1 plus 1 = 2. This has been the goal all the time. A profit mechanism. Although it has been sold to the American public that this e-record will help reduce the overall cost of healthcare, I beg to differ. I see companies cashing in every way possible from storage to the software itself. I also see huge profits for companies who are able to datamine this information. Most of those companies being the same organizations or companies the op refers to. This is a cause for concern because in the end we will have very limited privacy and our health bills will still be costly.

This is truly disturbing. Giant corporations are going to be able to view my medical records and do who knows what with the information. Doesn't this violate doctor/patient confidentiality? People are going to (and should) start lying to their doctors, people are just going to quit going to doctors period and there's going to be a HUGE increase in the amount of black market medical care, for those who wish to keep the details of their medical history private. I can see how the latter two would be beneficial to TPTB in that it would reduce costs to the coming universal health care system, but forcing people to lie about something as important as medical information is potentially fatal and whoever came up with this whole idea should be tarred and feathered for for even thinking of something this evil.

Unfortunately for us, the power behind ANSI and other such 'Institutions' is both corporate and transnational. Their machinations are all closely related to corporate agendas.

Having once worked in an industry which made extraordinary efforts to 'have a say' in the final specifications and codes regarding newer communication technology I can assure you, it's all about who holds patents on what technology and who is poised to take advantage of that technology.

The global health care industry, along with their buddies in the legal community have changed the outcome of many such deliberations. Much like they did (and are still doing) with the CODEX ALIMENTARIUM, we are as a nation succumbing to their plans by virtue of recognizing their 'declarations' as defacto LAW.

Anyone who has been/ is a member of an HMO, PPO, etc., (alphabet soup acronyms for health care services) already has files in the electronic system.
This appears that the funds will be used to get all of the files from the innumerable service Corporations into the same format.

I know it doesn't make it less palatable.

Anyone involved with the VA services out there that has a problem with referrals, making appts. with their personal care physician-in-training, scheduling?