Search giant Google publicly released its Google Health service.  The offering allows consumers to manage some health records online.  The product has been anticipated for several years.

Health & Human Services is spending millions of dollars on an ad campaign to promote its HospitalCompare website.  The ads will feature survey results from selected organizations and various versions will run in markets throughout the country.

TheHill.com has posted an interview with Mike Leavitt, Health and Human Services Secretary.  Leavitt talks about several topics, including a new Medicare demonstration project involving small physician practices, the implementation and spread of electronic health records, and the benefits of increasing interoperability standards.

Kaiser Permanente announced on Monday that it has completed the distribution of its outpatient electronic health record (EHR).  The deployment first began in 2004 and concluded this month.

Medicare has cut payments for certain problems that occur in hospitals in an effort to improve quality of care.  Currently, Medicare is proposing new cuts in payments for nine more items, leading some health care providers to question how appropriate the new items are.

Computer backup tapes with patient information were stolen form a storage company used by the University of Miami.  Officials are preparing to notify 47,000 affected patients.