ABSTRACT
I entered healthcare in the mid-1970s. This was the era of the mainframe. For most healthcare employees, the mainframe was known as a large computer that only a limited number of users had access to. Confidentiality was, of course, a concern; however, the focus was on physical controls for paper documents. As technology evolved, the 1980s brought the client/server environment, which provided a way to interconnect programs and computers that are distributed across different locations. This client/server environment opened up access to many users. By the end of the 1990s, the Internet/intranet had opened up data access to a larger number of users than ever thought possible.
