Please Take a Number

So Ringwood is pleased to hear the federal government will introduce shared electronic health records. If the roll-out goes to plan, by July 1, 2012, any patient will be able to ask their doctor to create one. They will be uploaded on the web to be accessed - with patient permission - by any of the nation's 700,000 registered medical and allied professionals. The first step is complete: a 16-digit number called a ''health identifier'' has been assigned to every Australian known to Medicare. It can be used in all health encounters from cradle to grave.

This number is one of the reasons privacy advocates do not share Ringwood's delight. They fear a stalking horse for another run at a national identity card. They also fear e-health records will mean Big Brother peeking through the keyhole of a very private place: the consulting room.'

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