Government

Electronic court records could cut costs, create privacy risks

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By KYLE CAMPBELL
Capital News Service
LANSING — To save time and money, a bipartisan group of legislators wants to make more court records digitally accessible. The legislation would reduce the time it takes to access them and therefore reduce court costs, Rep. David Rutledge, D-Ypsilanti, said. The proposals would let digital and electronic records be used as evidence instead of requiring the originals. “This is part of modernizing the court system,” Rutledge said. “It has an opportunity to speed things up in the system and thereby save taxpayer dollars.”
Some states digitize all their court records, while others are in the process of doing so, reducing costs for litigants as well as taxpayers, said Seth Andersen, executive director of the American Judicature Society in Des Moines, Iowa.

Health

Electronic health records raise worry about hacking

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By MICHAEL GERSTEIN
Capital News Service
LANSING – Many hospitals have already swapped old paper documents for electronic records to slash administration costs and improve health care. But with more hospitals switching to digital filing, concern is growing among health and technology professionals that the push for efficiency and lower costs will open the door to malicious attacks from cyberthieves searching for valuable information. Yet there have been few known Michigan cases of medical information stolen by unauthorized people, experts say. “We haven’t really seen any that we’re aware of,” Colin Ford said of privacy breaches. He is the director of state and government affairs at the Michigan State Medical Society.