Medical Records

A Philadelphia jury is to resume its apparently methodical analysis of the case against abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell on Friday after learning that the task ahead may be bigger than it thought. Among the long list of charges against Gosnell, 72, are 227 counts of violating the state's 24-hour waiting period before a woman can have an abortion. Late Thursday, the Common Pleas Court jury of seven women and five men asked if an earlier stipulation involving medical records for those abortions meant it could return one mass verdict.

About 20 percent of America is suffering from a poor "credit health history" due to widespread inaccuracies in their data reported by at least one of the big three reporting agencies, the Federal Trade Commission announced recently. Some inaccuracies have caused unjustified higher fees for borrowing. But at least Americans can easily spot problems in their financial reports. They may be difficult or impossible to fix, but those records have to be provided to consumers. There are far more important records that may contain dangerous, inaccurate data, but aren't available anywhere: our personal medical files.

Americans have the right to detailed information about the health of presidential candidates before they put one of them in the Oval Office. And they deserve updates after that. Bill Clinton shortchanged the public as a candidate four years ago, and he is doing it again now. He seems to think that his robust appearance, backed by sunny words and skimpy details from his spokesman, will suffice. It won't. The health of his 73-year-old opponent, Bob Dole, has been documented by medical records released last year, and further explained in an interview Mr. Dole's doctor gave to a medical reporter for The New York Times.

Electronic medical records are considered by many health-care experts an essential tool in eventually providing better and more cost-efficient health care for Americans, but the implementation process is still in its infancy and has teething pains, as explained in a government report released Thursday. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) have provided financial incentives for doctors and hospitals to implement effective electronic records. According to CMS records, 51 hospitals in Pennsylvania and 15 in New Jersey have received payments, as have 3,798 Pennsylvania doctors and 2,135 of their colleagues in New Jersey.

Patients can now create their own online medical records, receive electronic health alerts tailored to their ailments, and exchange e-mail with their doctors free of charge, under a service unveiled yesterday. The for-profit venture, called iHealthRecord, is part of an ongoing trend toward converting patient records, many of which still are maintained on paper, to the Internet. Health-care economists say conversion of patient records to databases linked to the Internet would save billions of dollars and greatly improve patient care by, among other things, helping to avoid medical errors.

Picture this: A man is found unconscious and rushed to the emergency room. Doctors fish in his wallet and find his Social Security number. They punch the number into a huge computer network with access to the medical records of every American. Within seconds, the doctors know all about the man - every allergy, diagnosis and treatment he's ever had. Now picture this: Potential employers, insurance companies or political adversaries punch that same Social Security number, tap into that same network - and find out about the man's drinking habits, his vasectomy and his psychoanalysis.

IT'S DOUBTFUL that bikers in the Pagan's Motorcycle Club keep membership lists, bylaws and bank statements in neat file cabinets, but officials in New Jersey say they need whatever records the club has to defend themselves against a lawsuit. The New Jersey State Police are the defendants in a civil-rights suit filed by two Pagan's Motorcycle Club members and a former Tribe MC member. The suit stems from a July 30, 2009, traffic stop involving six motorcycles in Burlington County that lasted more than an hour.

  When patients insured by Independence Blue Cross are discharged from the hospital, discharge reports are added to medical records at their primary doctors' offices less than 50 percent of the time. It's a common example of the gaps in information-sharing among hospitals, doctors, and others in the health-care system. "A physician caring for a patient is sometimes not aware of all of the care that's been provided, not aware of all the medications the patient is taking, or aware of the lab tests that have been done, or of the results of those tests," said Richard Snyder, chief medical officer at Independence Blue Cross.

A South Philadelphia doctor, convicted on 18 of 19 counts relating to running a "pill mill" at his office at 7th and Morris Streets, was sentenced today to seven years in federal prison. Richard Minicozzi, 79, who lives in Elkins Park, sold prescriptions for oxycodone and distributed Vicodin and Xanax for cash to "patients" who had no legitimate need for the drugs, prosecutors said. Minicozzi's attorney, Jeff Miller, told the Inquirer that his client suffers from dementia and that wholesalers who sold him the drugs are guilty of profiting from the unusually high volumes Minicozzi ordered.

A Philadelphia jury is to resume its apparently methodical analysis of the case against abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell on Friday after learning that the task ahead may be bigger than it thought. Among the long list of charges against Gosnell, 72, are 227 counts of violating the state's 24-hour waiting period before a woman can have an abortion. Late Thursday, the Common Pleas Court jury of seven women and five men asked if an earlier stipulation involving medical records for those abortions meant it could return one mass verdict.

NEW YORK - An investor who helped launch Anthony Bosch's Biogenesis of America has been trying to sell purported documents from the closed antiaging clinic to Major League Baseball and players, several people familiar with the matter said Friday. MLB has bought some of the documents, the people said, all speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the situation. MLB has been investigating the clinic for allegedly distributing banned performance-enhancing drugs to players.

About 20 percent of America is suffering from a poor "credit health history" due to widespread inaccuracies in their data reported by at least one of the big three reporting agencies, the Federal Trade Commission announced recently. Some inaccuracies have caused unjustified higher fees for borrowing. But at least Americans can easily spot problems in their financial reports. They may be difficult or impossible to fix, but those records have to be provided to consumers. There are far more important records that may contain dangerous, inaccurate data, but aren't available anywhere: our personal medical files.

It's doubtful that bikers in the Pagan's Motorcycle Club keep membership lists, by-laws and bank statements alphabetized in file cabinets, but officials in New Jersey say they need whatever records the club has to defend themselves against a lawsuit. The New Jersey State Police are the defendants in civil rights suit filed by two Pagan's Motorcycle Club members and a former Tribe MC member. The suit stems from a July 30, 2009, traffic stop involving six motorcycles in Burlington County that lasted more than an hour.

  When patients insured by Independence Blue Cross are discharged from the hospital, discharge reports are added to medical records at their primary doctors' offices less than 50 percent of the time. It's a common example of the gaps in information-sharing among hospitals, doctors, and others in the health-care system. "A physician caring for a patient is sometimes not aware of all of the care that's been provided, not aware of all the medications the patient is taking, or aware of the lab tests that have been done, or of the results of those tests," said Richard Snyder, chief medical officer at Independence Blue Cross.

The Delaware County District Attorney's Office said Friday that it was investigating whether bullying led to a Jan. 10 schoolyard fight at Darby Township Elementary School in which an 11-year-old reportedly was seriously injured. "There is no confirmation that this altercation was a result of bullying," spokeswoman Emily Harris said Friday. The victim, Baily O'Neill, a sixth grader at the school, has since been hospitalized. The Darby Township Police Department is leading the investigation, which the District Attorney's Office is assisting, Harris said.

The Delaware County District Attorney's office says it is investigating whether bullying led to a Jan. 10 schoolyard fight at Darby Township Elementary School in which an 11-year-old reportedly was seriously injured. "There is no confimation that this altercation was a result of bullying," DA spokeswoman Emily Harris said in an interview Friday. The 11-year-old victim, Baily O'Neill, a sixth-grader at the school, has since been hospitalized. The Darby Township Police Department is leading the investigation, which the DA's office is assisting, Harris said.

Child protection workers did not prove that a Cape May County mother abused her infant even though the child tested positive for cocaine at birth, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled in a unanimous decision Wednesday. The decision overturned two lower-court decisions in the 2007 case. Drug tests alone do not substantiate abuse and protection workers must show actual or imminent harm, the justices wrote. The court also found that state child welfare laws do not apply to a fetus.