Quoted: New tools are being developed that may help harried patients monitor their medications, home tests and other details. This is part of a shift toward a medical system that is more centered on and directed by patients themselves.

First, however, patients will have to become comfortable placing medical data like readings from home tests online...such programs are still under development, and all of this remains to be seen.

Quoted: Fannie Mae, the nation's biggest underwriter of home mortgages, has been under increasing pressure from the Clinton Administration to expand mortgage loans among low and moderate income people and felt pressure from stock holders to maintain its phenomenal growth in profits.

Quoted: Randy Pausch, the Carnegie Mellon University computer science professor whose final lecture inspired millions, died early today in Virginia of pancreatic cancer.

Quoted: U.S. physicians need to catch up with other industrialized nations -- such as Australia, Great Britain, the Netherlands and New Zealand -- in adopting electronic health records to enhance medical care and reduce costs.

If this country does not accelerate the conversion from paper to electronic health records, many health care reform promises will become irrelevant.

Quoted: While Seattle hasn't seen a 70-degree day in more than two weeks, Fairbanks, Alaska, has had six of them in the past 10 days...even the Siberian city of Tomsk, Russia, hit the 70s last weekend!

Quoted: The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services is seeking comments on a new proposed pay-for-performance program that rewards practices that use I.T. to help chronic disease patients.

The small-scale pilot aims to determine if the use of IT can help doctors better care for Medicare beneficiaries with chronic diseases. CMS plans to select four physician practices treating at least 50 Medicare beneficiaries in Arkansas, California, Massachusetts and Utah.

Quoted: Physicians who have seen an electronic medical records system pay for itself within a year share how they, and their systems, made it happen.

Quoted: WebMD cited several reasons for lowering its revenue forecast, but the company singled out Microsofts potential purchase of Yahoo! even after reports that Yahoo! had rejected the bid. WebMD is uncertain how the potential buyout would affect its display deal with Yahoo!.

Quoted: Personal health records are becoming increasingly popular, with more than 100 vendors offering a range of features. The reluctance of most doctors to adopt electronic health records has aided the trend toward PHRs and patient-driven health care.