How do pharmaceutical companies use electronic records?

Check newspapers, Web sites, trade journals, and other sources of news or recent information for one or more topical mentions of electronic document management or record management in relation to one of, but not limited to, the following areas (This is not an exhaustive list.)

Personal electronic medical records

Records of national historical purpose such as email records from the White house

Company email records used in a lawsuit

Switching to medical records at hospitals

How the government (Medicare, Medicaid) uses electronic medical records

How pharmaceutical companies use electronic records

Electronic filing of tax returns at the IRS

Use of electronic signatures in real estate transactions

Electronic distribution of school transcripts

Electronic records management in doctors’ offices

Electronic document management systems in the court system

When and how health care providers will have to inform patients of a security breach

Electronic record management in the financial industry

Select one issue (or challenge) of electronic records management we have covered in class in relation to the area you are interested in and write a no shorter than 1-page essay (single spacing, 12-point font size) that summarizes your findings (in your own words) and present your own position on the issue. Please locate and cite at least five sources to build your own position on the issue.

You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes.

Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages.

Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor.

The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.