Category: Health Data

Mason Adams and Michael Sluss write in The Roanoke Times: The General Assembly voted unanimously Tuesday to approve a package of bills intended to reform Virginia’s mental health system and fill long-neglected gaps exposed by April’s shootings at Virginia Tech. […] The legislation would ease Virginia’s standard for involuntary commitment and improve monitoring of people…

Meagan Sexton writes: The Illinois House on Tuesday rejected legislation that would repeal the state’s Communicable Disease Prevention Act, which requires students to report their HIV status to principals. The legislation attracted 43 “yes” votes and 62 “no” votes. House Bill 4314 was an attempt to repeal the existing law that permits a school principal…

People who were adopted would have access to their original birth certificate under a bill that’s been introduced to the Minnesota legislature. The access would allow people who were adopted to find out the names of their birth parents. The bill is facing opposition by some adoption agencies, because some birth parents may not want…

Keith Darcé writes in the Union-Tribune: After being diagnosed with Lyme disease, former Amazon.com senior executive Keith Schorsch wanted to find others dealing with the illness, and he thought the Internet could help him make those connections. The experience led to the recent launch of Trusera, a Web site that lets people record and share…

Five doctors organizations have launched a Web site and campaign designed to persuade physicians to switch from paper-based prescriptions of medications to electronic prescribing. The Get Connected campaign, along with the GetRxConnected.com Web site, are focused on helping doctors move from prescriptions written on paper pads or entered into a computer and faxed to pharmacies….

Since we’re all so excited at the prospect of putting medical records online, can we talk, for a moment, about security? A techie friend of mine told me recently about a nefarious site that somehow manages to mimic whatever site you think you’re going to — a shadow jcrew.com, for example, or a shadow Orbitz,…