Health privacy in the electronic age.

Health care expenditure in the United States exceeds $2 trillion a year, and on a per capita basis far exceeds the expenditure of any other country. Much of this money is not well spent, as many studies have documented the inefficiency and waste in the public and private health care systems. Furthermore, despite the high cost of American health care, key measures of the nation’s health, such as infant mortality and life expectancy, lag well behind other developed countries. One assumed method of increasing efficiency and improving outcomes is to expand and improve the use of health information technology, including the universal adoption of electronic health records (EHRs). Supporters of EHRs assert that they avoid duplication of history taking and tests, promote coordination of care, reduce medical errors, ensure access to records from