The use of electronic medical records -- hailed worldwide as a tremendous advancement for healthcare records management -- has grown dramatically in the last several years, raising new legal concerns for healthcare providers, payors, insurance companies, and patients.

Electronic medical records trigger unique compliance issues arising out of HIPAA's privacy measures, Stark and the Anti-Kickback statutes -- and create unique antitrust concerns and evidentiary issues in litigation.

Legal issues also arise from federal initiatives to reduce medical errors, including the Patient Safety and Quality Improvement Act and the National Medical Error Disclosure and Compensation Act.

Listen as our authoritative panelists identify the challenging legal issues, outline the major risks and potential liabilities in managing electronic healthcare records, and offer best practices and practical solutions to avoid litigation and penalties.

Heidi Y. Echols, Partner, McDermott Will & Emery, Chicago, provides counsel on privacy and security issues and information technology transactions for a broad range of industries, including health, financial, consulting and IT. She also analyzes and advises clients with respect to electronic and digital signatures and online contracting issues.

Marilyn Lamar, Partner, McDermott Will & Emery, Chicago, chairs the Information Technology practice group and has served as counsel in e-commerce and licensing transactions for Internet companies, hospitals, HMOs and pharmaceutical manufacturers. She has substantial experience in privacy issues, including rules recently proposed by the DHHS regarding electronic patient information.

Daniel H. Melvin, Partner, McDermott Will & Emery, Chicago, focuses on regulatory compliance and payment issues for the health care industry. He has substantial experience counseling clients on fraud and abuse, physician self-referral and Medicare reimbursement and compliance issues, as well as modeling of clinical joint ventures and other collaborative arrangements involving physicians.

They address these and other key questions:

• How can providers and insurers effectively balance the need for access to records and meet the HIPAA demands for patient privacy and information security?
• What are the legal consequences for failing to protect electronic medical records?
• What are some of the unique evidentiary and discovery issues that arise with electronic health records?
• What antitrust concerns arise for healthcare providers in utilizing electronic records management?