Assembled cognoscenti ! The national health data-base seems to have a number of problems: -financial, -data-acquisition and -legal , I am wondering if it has a low-tech distributed solution.! Firstly let me say as a result of two contacts with hospitals I am really enthusiastic about the idea of having all my medical history accessible to doctors (with my permission) available 'on-line' During these contacts, it was quite frightening to realise that doctors were relying on my memory for for details of diagnostic and prescription history. (Yesterday is not quite an unknown land, but it often requires quite a lot of reconstruction !) So when the option came up I jumped through all the hoops to enable an online version of my medical history. Problems which became apparent in discussions with my local GP recently 1/ My 'paper' medical history is physically distributed amongst the various doctors I have used over the years, so it would need to be gathered from these doctors, -data acquisition problem #1 2/ IF it could be gathered and IF a standardised data-base format could be agreed, upon it would need to be converted; - data acquisition problem #2; 3/ Thus far per capita cost of the above seems not to have been calculated, or if calculated pubicised; not to mention who is to pay ; me, my doctor or the Australian taxpayer ? -The direct beneficiary would seem to be myself, but thus far no-one seems to be asking me for money, 4/ Thus far the current model seems to be a vast centralised repository, Further problems become apparent : - having gathered, converted and transmitted the data to this repository; complex data access permission problems seem to remain because, 'publicising ' the data in this way (even with my permission) seems to expose my GP's and respective diagnostic test providers to legal liabilities -thus currently accessing my data would seem to involve not just my permission but the permission of the GP and if relevant the permission of any diagnostic test provider, on a per item basis !.....an extremely unwieldy arrangement It occurred that perhaps it might be cheaper and easier to leave the records where they are and unconverted and have the central repository merely consist of a set of links to this raw data. If a solution to legal liability of the test- providers could be found ; then it might be simpler and cheaper to just pay the GP's to copy and transmit the records on demand; flames, thoughts, queries ? regards Rohan McLeod