[mkelley]

I work for a company in Kentucky that is currently working on developing a system (with cooperation from the Department of Health) that addresses this exact problem. Basically a multi-user application that records all aspects of each Provider's "encounter" with a given patient. A Provider could be a doctor, nurse, lab tech, etc... So at anytime the current provider for a patient has access to all previous "notes" and any other data recorded about the patient as well as who recorded that information. Though I must admit, when I first started on this project I was quite surprised that there really wasn't much out there for public healthcare providers that didn't already do this. Besides Kentucky, there are several other states showing interest as well ... I just thought I'd mention that so nobody thinks, "Oh backwards Kentucky, their doctors run around the hospital barefoot!" Apparently this is a widespread problem in the public healthcare system across the United States as well.