Abstract: A system for a community-wide health information infrastructure incorporates applications of information technology in conjunction with an incremental approach that creates incentives for voluntary participation for health care providers, payers, and patients from the onset. It identifies the hierarchical importance of categories of medical and health information and sets forth a systematic approach to utilize that hierarchy to establish a composite personal medical or health record for each individual.

Abstract: An information search system incorporating computer algorithms that provide for (1) enforcement of compliance with a standardized vocabulary by a user or users, in a manner that is much more acceptable to users than known existing methods; 2) instant or essentially instant provision of information that is context sensitive, that is, sensitive to the sequence of characters that are entered by a user, in a manner that is highly acceptable to users.

Abstract: A medication list management and electronic prescribing system incorporates a method of generating tamper-evident prescriptions on paper. Using password protected web pages, health care workers or patients can cause the transmission of machine-readable protected health information from the inventive system to another information management system using the tamper-evident prescriptions described. Non-participants can verify the authenticity of printed protected health information but are not able to create the automated transmission of this information from the inventive system to another information management system. This transmission of machine-readable protected health information has an economic value that is sufficient to be used as an inducement to health care providers across the industry to use a common information technology platform to accomplish such tasks.

Abstract: A system that creates a national health information infrastructure provides secure storage and retrieval of personal health information (PHI) while allowing health care providers to retain their preferred method of documentation (handwriting) for the majority of their documentation requirements. Unique codes associated with each handwritten document allow rapid access to the individual patient's PHI by healthcare providers. These unique codes also allow the system to associate the images of PHI documents with the individual (e.g. patient) to whom the PHI pertains.

Abstract: A medication list management and electronic prescribing system incorporates a method of generating tamper-evident prescriptions on paper. Using password protected web pages, health care workers or patients can cause the transmission of machine-readable protected health information from the inventive system to another information management system using the tamper-evident prescriptions described. Non-participants can verify the authenticity of printed protected health information but are not able to create the automated transmission of this information from the inventive system to another information management system. This transmission of machine-readable protected health information has an economic value that is sufficient to be used as an inducement to health care providers across the industry to use a common information technology platform to accomplish such tasks.