social care systems. In veterinary medicine In UK veterinary practice, the replacement of paper recording systems with electronic methods of storing animal patient information escalated from the 1980s and the majority of clinics now use electronic medical records. In a sample of 129 veterinary practices, 89% used a Practice Management System (PMS) for data recording. There are more than ten PMS providers currently in the UK. Collecting data directly from PMSs for epidemiological analysis abolishes the need for veterinarians to manually submit individual reports per animal visit and therefore increases the reporting rate. Veterinary electronic medical record data are being used to investigate antimicrobial efficacy; risk factors for canine cancer; and inherited diseases in dogs and cats, in the small animal disease surveillance project 'VetCOMPASS' (Veterinary Companion Animal Surveillance System) at the Royal Veterinary College, London, in collaboration with the University of Sydney (the VetCOMPASS project was formerly known as VEctAR). Turing test A letter published in Communications of the ACM describes the concept of generating synthetic patient population and proposes a variation of Turing test to assess the difference between synthetic and real patients. The letter states: "In the EHR context, though a human physician can readily distinguish between synthetically generated and real live human patients, could a machine be given the intelligence to make such a determination on its own?" and further the letter states: "Before synthetic patient identities become a public health problem, the legitimate EHR market might benefit from applying Turing Test-like techniques to ensure greater data reliability and diagnostic value. Any new techniques must thus consider patients' heterogeneity and are likely to have greater complexity than the Allen eighth-grade-science-test is able to grade." See also Electronic health records in the United States Electronic health records in England Clinical documentation improvement European Institute for Health Records (EuroRec) Health informatics Health information management Health information technology Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act Hospital information system List of open-source health software Masking (Electronic Health Record) Medical imaging Medical privacy Medical record Personal health record Personally Controlled Electronic Health Record, the Australian government's shared electronic health summary system Picture archiving and communication system Radiological information system Solid health References External links Can Electronic Health Record Systems Transform Health Care? Open-Source EHR Systems for Ambulatory Care: A Market Assessment (California HealthCare Foundation, January 2008) US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Office of the National Coordinator