Posted on behalf of Christian Torres

At the end of the week, it may be hard to remember what you’ve read recently. That’s why we’ve compiled a few reminders from our news coverage, and giving a few updates.

— In our March electronic health records (EHRs) focus, we brought up the issue of secondary data use by the pharmaceutical industry. If companies have access to patients’ prescription data, for example, it could be used for marketing purposes. Now, a bill in the California state legislature that would have prevented the sale of such patient records to companies has been put on hold.

— Also in our EHR focus, there were mentions of concerns with relying on such systems. The Huffington Post Investigative Fund published two stories on EHR safety this week, having found that 237 adverse event reports were filed with the US Food and Drug Administration over the past two years; those events included six deaths and 43 injuries, largely due to system malfunctions and mix-ups.

— Here’s one from a while back: Last year, we featured the progress being made in lung cancer research, particularly regarding specific mutations. This week, at the American Association of Cancer Research meeting in Washington, DC, an update was given on the US Department of Defense’s BATTLE (Biomarker-integrated Approaches of Targeted Therapy for Lung cancer Elimination) project, a clinical trial focused on treating based on specific mutations.

— Since the US launch of the iPad on 3 April, you’ve probably seen at least one floating around. But will you soon see it around the hospital? MedGadget has a roundup of opinions on the iPad’s potential for health care, whether accessing patient records or the many oncoming applications. For more on iPhone apps – many of which also work on the iPad – check out our video on “Mobile Medicine.”