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Steve Fossett Breaks World Aviation Record; A Look At Forensic Data Retrieval; Interview with WWII Pilot Paul Tibbetts
Aired March 5, 2005 - 15:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
ANDREA KOPPEL, CNN ANCHOR, NEXT@CNN: Hello. I'm Andrea Koppel at the CNN Center in Atlanta. NEXT@CNN begins in a moment, but first headlines right now.
CNN has obtained new pictures of a man believed to be terrorist leader Abu Musab Al Zarqawi. Sources tell CNN the man shown in these six photographs is in fact Al Zarqawi, who has been linked to Al Qaeda. It is not clear how recently the photos were taken. But they appear to have been taken at the same time and place. The United States considered Al Zarqawi the most wanted man in Iraq and it has placed a $25 million bounty on his head.
Faced with intense international pressure, Syrian president Bashar Al Assad has announced a troop redeployment plan in Lebanon. All Syrian troops in the country will be moved to the Bekaa Valley, and later to the Lebanon's Syrian border. The plan falls short though of demand by President Bush and other world leaders for Syria to pull all of its forces out of Lebanon.
Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena is now back home. She's arrived in Italy one day after being injured by American troops who accidentally fired on her car as it sped toward Baghdad's airport. Sgrena has been held captive by Iraqi insurgents for a month. The Italian security officer who helped negotiate her release and was also in the car was killed in yesterday's incident.
Time now for a check on the weekend weather. Here's meteorologist Jacqui Jeras.
JACQUI JERAS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Hello everyone I'm Jacqui Jeras in the CNN Weather Center. Some wet weather today across the southwest, from San Diego extending all the way over to San Antonio, some heavier showers into western Texas and some thunderstorms, a little snow in the higher elevations across northern Arizona and into New Mexico. Including the Flagstaff area.
A little clipper moving through the center Appalachians and across the Mid Atlantic states, mostly bringing in some rain, but a bit of a wintry mix, especially into West Virginia, and that cold front drops on down toward the Gulf coast today. Nice conditions in the upper Midwest, and also in the Rockies. Some very mild temperatures for you in Denver today, with the high near 60 degrees, 62 in (INAUDIO).
KOPPEL: Thanks Jacqui. I'm Andrea Koppel in Atlanta. There is much more news at the bottom of the hour. NEXT@CNN begins right now. DANIEL SIEBERG, CNN ANCHOR, NEXT@CNN: Hi, I'm Daniel Sieberg. Today on NEXT@CNN, global flyer glides into the history books as pilot Steve Fossett makes the first solo flight around the world without refueling.
Also, Yellow Stone National Park tries to balance the demands of snow mobilers with those of nature lovers who want clean air and quiet.
And Philadelphia's football stadium needs to be in concession stands technology. All that and more on NEXT.
Pilot and adventurer Steve Fossett added another aviation record to his collection this week, by completing the first nonstop solo flight around the world without refueling. There was no shortage of drama and nervous moments.
SIEBERG (voice over): The first shower he got from financer Sir Richard Branson probably was not one he needed, but it was exactly what he wanted. Sixty seven hours aloft after logging about 23,000 miles, pilot Steve Fossett was celebrating right back where he started. And the world became a little bit smaller because of it.
STEVE FOSSETT, PILOT: Well, that was something I've wanted to do for a long time.
SIEBERG: It started after almost a month waiting for the right jet stream to help propel him around the world. And problems almost instantly. Fossett's GPS failed, leaving him flying blind. It would have stopped the show, but it was quickly fixed. Then there was just the sheer exhaustion of flying alone for such a long period of time.
FOSSETT: Yes, I'm feeling tired, and I'll be very happy to finish the trip and get on the ground.
SIEBERG: Only pilot fatigue seemed to be in the way of the man who held 102 world records before this flight, including a daring around the world balloon trip that took several tries before succeeding in 2002. This go-around, Fossett wanted to get it right the first time. Legendary aircraft designer Burt Rutan was commissioned to build the global flier. Rutan also built Voyager which flew around the world with two pilots in 1986.
PAUL MOORE, PROJECT MANAGER: There's been a rather troubling development with regard to the fuel that Steve has on board. There's a discrepancy to the tune of 2,600 pounds.
SIEBERG: That's about 15 H2 hummers' worth of fuel that mysteriously disappeared or didn't register on the gauges. The 100 plus mile per hour tailwinds from the jet stream encouraged Fossett to push on.
FOSSETT: I believe that we no longer need to give any more consideration to landing in Hawaii. I have every hope of making it to Salina tomorrow.
SIEBERG: And he made it look easy. Designer Rutan gave Fossett an 8.5 on the landing.
BURT RUTAN, GLOBALFLYER DESIGNER: No question about it, Steve is a different animal than most of us.
SIEBERG: And after nearly three days with virtually no sleep and just a liquid diet, the pilot looked forward to a nap and his first real meal.
FOSSETT: I haven't thought about that yet. It won't be a milkshake, though.
SIEBERG (on camera): Quite an amazing accomplishment. Well back in the world of commercial aviation, the Federal Aviation Administration is looking at ways to improve cockpit voice recorders. The so-called black boxes, which are actually orange, that capture the details of every flight. The plan calls for more sound and statistics, but no pictures. Kathleen Koch has the story in our "Getting There" segment.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KATHLEEN KOCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): When Alaska air flight 261 crashed off the coast of California in 2000, investigators checking the cockpit voice recorder heard pilots already well into wrestling with an emergency situation. Such scenarios could now change, as the FAA proposes the recorders hold not just 15 or 30 minutes, as they do today, but two hours of audio.
MARION BLAKEY, ADMINISTRATIOR, FAA: We are going to have a much longer period of time in which we will actually know what was said, what transpired in the cockpit. That's critically important.
KOCH: Ten minutes of backup power will be required, so voice recorders keep taping when the main power fails. Flight data recorders will have to hold 25 hours of data instead of just eight, and they'll take measurements much more frequently. Instead of measuring movements of aircraft component like the rudder every quarter or half second or pilot maneuvers once a second, those measurements will be taken every 16th of a second. The FAA says besides providing more clues to solve crashes, the changes will make flying safer.
JOHN HICKEY, DOR, OF AIRCRAFT CERTIFICATION: The sooner I can get a cause to an accident, the quicker I can respond to the safety issue in the existing fleet.
KOCH: The FAA has no plans to require cameras in the cockpit. Pilots oppose them, but experts believe they're critical in solving small airplane accidents like the 2002 crash that killed Senator Paul Wellstone.
FRED FRANCES, FMR. NTSB VICE CHHM: Having video recorders in that kin of an airplane where they do not have cockpit voice recorders, where they do not have flight data recorders is something that should be a high priority.
KOCH (on camera): The improvements in the recorders that often refer to as black boxes will cost airlines $256 million, but they won't start showing up in aircraft until 2008 at the earliest.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Coming up, computers and floppy disks may hide evidence that you can't see, but forensic detectives can. We'll show you how they uncovered digital secrets.
And later in the show, electronic medical records could improve healthcare. So why are so few hospitals using it?
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SIEBERG: Information on a computer disk may have helped lead police to a suspect in the BTK serial killings that terrorized Wichita Kansas, for decades. Digital detectives can find clues that computer users think they have erased.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOHN MALLERY, COMPUTER FORENSICS EXPERT: Windows operating system I like in to the Wizard of Oz. For the man behind the curtain with the applications and operating systems are doing behind the scenes, that's the realm of the computer forensics examiner.
SIEBERG (voice over): The oldest rule is the book for cyber Sleuse (ph) is delete doesn't mean gone. It's John Valerie's mantra, part of his job as a computer forensics consultant is to help make technical stuff understandable.
MALLERY: Almost you have a library, and for those of you that remember card catalogs. If you take a card out of the card catalog, the book is still on the shelf. When you delete a file the pointers go away, the data still stays there. It can stay there for five seconds, it can stay there for years. It stays there until the operating system decides to write over that deleted file with new data.
What are you hoping to get out of this?
SIEBERG: Mallery who works for the accounting firm B.K.D. is presenting a class at the Southeast Cybercrime Summit at Kennisaw (ph) State University just outside Atlanta. In a previous life, he actually did stand-up comedy with the likes of Dennis Miller and Drew Carey. Beyond computers, his skills include knife-throwing and he sees a link between the two.
MALLERY: I throw knives around my wife. If I'm not in shape, if I haven't practiced, I put her at risk. If I'm a computer forensic examiner and I don't keep up with my computer skills, bad guys can get away.
SIEBERG: Having lived in Kansas for 17 years, Mallery is familiar with it is BTK case. Press reports say data on a floppy disk was critical for investigators. Mallery gives me a rudimentary but effective demonstration of how deleted data can be recovered.
MALLERY: We'll look at a floppy here, in this case you have a deleted word documents. I'm going to scroll down and what you're looking at here is the contents of this deleted work document. There's additional information added to the file when you create a document, so the user name can often by added to that document, the company name, the computer name, the original location. In the BTK case, that might have been what helped law enforcement track this person down.
SIEBERG: So if I delete something, is it gone?
MALLERY: If you just delete something, no, it is not gone.
SIEBERG: If I empty the recycle bin?
MALLERY: It's not gone.
SIEBERG: And if I format the hard drive?
MALLERY: It's not gone.
SIEBERG: This is basically what the hard drive on your computer might look like. Believe it or not, you can take a sledgehammer to it and you still may not destroy everything that's on it. Even a fire may not do it. In fact, forensic experts say the only way to guarantee is to shred, smelt or pulverize it. Sometimes the criminals make it easy for computer detectives.
MALLERY: A methamphetamine dealer actually documented all their sales on an excel spreadsheet, name of customer, address, what they purchased and when they purchased it, all nicely laid out on a spread sheet.
SIEBERG: Any time you turn on a computer, open a file, type a key, send a message, there's a record. It's not just desktop computers that have a treasure trove of information and possible evidence.
MALLERY: You have personal digital assistants, you have blackberries, you have cell phones that can now send and receive e- mails, that can take pictures. Incredible. We always say a safe computer is one you never turn on and you bury in the ground six feet underground.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SIEBERG: All right everyone whose computer is not buried six feet underground knows that you can find some pretty disturbing stuff on the Web. Everything for porn to terrorist sites. Now the man behind one of the porn sites has taken on an unlikely crusade battling the terrorist sites. Tom Foreman has the story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): Posed by the sunny shores of Maryland in a warehouse near the beach, business is taking off for Jon Messner. Nine years ago he jumped into the expanding business of Internet porn, using his wife as a model, and charging on- line customers for every peek. Soon he was employing other models, learning the intricacies of commerce on the Web and porn became a mainstay of his income, his identity.
JON MESSNER, INTERNET PORNOGRAPHER: I will always be, no matter what contribution I am to make to society, I will be first and foremost that pornographer.
FOREMAN: So even he was surprised when the events of 9/11 changed his life. Ever since he has used the skills he developed for porn to seize and dismantle terrorist Web sites.
MESSNER: Oh it has become very poplar to hate Americans. You can't swing a dead cat without hitting a terrorist Website of somebody that wants to bring harm to the American people no question.
FOREMAN: Among the 4 billion Web sites in the world are hidden at least 4,000 terrorist-related sites, according to a study by the U.S. Institute of Peace. Last fall, Iraq-based terrorist Abu Musab Al Zarqawi used the net to post his pledge of loyalty to Osama Bin Laden. It was a striking example of how terrorists are more than ever hiding in plain sight on the Net. Ben Venzke is a counter terrorism specialist.
BEN VENZKE, INTELCENTER: Pull together different parts of groups of people that are spread out around the world that might share a common cause and enables them to interact and work with each other and collaborate in a much faster speed with much less cost and with much greater security.
FOREMAN: Researcher Gabriel Wyman says they do all of this by working through a legitimate internet service provider.
GABRIEL WEIMANN, TERRORISM RESEARCHER: By the time they realize they can move the Web sites, they're reposted somewhere else. So it's almost a futile attempt to block them from assessing those providers.
FOREMAN (on camera): Still terrorists cannot set up a site without a name and address for registration, and of course they don't want to use their own. So when John Messner finds a terrorist site, he reports this discrepancy to the Internet provider. The provider drops the contract, and Messner snatches it up.
Sometimes he alters the site with pro-American ideas. Often he encourages discussions of issues that divide the world. It's high concept, low tech, and it works to his peril.
MESSNER: A good week doesn't go by that I don't get death threats.
FOREMAN: Porn still helps pay the bills, taking out more than a half dozen terrorist web sites has cost Messner thousands of dollars.
MESSNER: I don't know why I do this. I just know it's important. I know communication among people is important.
FOREMAN: And if others see a contradiction in a porn king crusader, he does not.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Just ahead, the commander of the Enola Gay looks back at his place in history and the bomb that launched the atomic age.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SIEBERG: Almost 60 years ago, an atomic bomb dropped from the Enola Gay, devastating Hiroshima Japan bringing a quick end to World War II. The men who flew that plane turned 90 years old last month and spent part of his birthday celebration talking with Miles O'Brien about that day in 1945.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): He's known as the man who ended the war. And he is now nearing the end of the line.
BRIG. GEN. PAUL TIBBETS (RET), ENOLA GAY COMMANDER: There it is, Liberty Bell.
O'BRIEN: And as he turns 90, Paul Tibbets is speaking out, trying to set the record straight about the brutal dawn of the nuclear age 60 years ago this year.
TIBBETS: No, no, we didn't figure we were out making history. That was for the old guys to do, make the history.
O'BRIEN: Of course, it was history. August 6, 1945, Tibbets commanding the B-29 bomber he named after his mother, Enola Gay, cast its shadow over Hiroshima, Japan at 8:15 in the morning there, the bomb known as little boy fell on an unsuspecting city.
TIBBETS: When the bomb exploded, I was just bringing my nose on the horizon, and the whole thing was lit up with pinks and blues, white, you never saw anything like it. It was instantaneous.
O'BRIEN: Dutch Van Kirk was the navigator on that faithful mission.
THEODORE "DUTCH" VAN KIRK, ENOLA GAY NAVIGATOR: We didn't see anything except the bright flash in the airplane. You saw the white cloud hanging over the city, you saw the underneath the cloud, the entire city was entirely covered with smoke and dust. It looked like a pot of boiling oil down there.
O'BRIEN: What did you say at that moment?
TIBBETS: To myself, I said that was a hell of a big bang, nobody can stand up to that. And we'll all get to go home.
O'BRIEN: Do you remember your thoughts at that moment?
VAN KIRK: My thoughts, God, I'm glad it worked, that was number one, because there was a real possibility it wouldn't work. I'm glad it worked. Number two, the thoughts were, this war's over. And that was good. That was good.
O'BRIEN: Of course, it was not quite the end yet. Three days later, another bomb fell on Nagasaki, with just two bombs dropped, over 100,000 people were dead and the war was over. The planned invasion of Japan would not happen, and who knows how many lives were saved. How do you square it? How do you square the lives you saved with the lives that were lost that day?
TIBBETS: Based on personal experience, I seldom go anywhere over the years that somebody doesn't come up and say, I was scheduled for that invasion. You saved my neck. I said, that's good news, I'm glad I could. No use talking about it any further.
O'BRIEN: While Tibbetts celebrated his birthday surrounded by family and former crewmates, complete with a World War II vintage air show, veterans of the IWO Jima invasion remembered the bloody hell they endured 60 years ago. 7,000 American marines died just to seize that single volcanic island from the Japanese.
LEWIS B. THOMPSON, WORLD WAR II VETERAN: We were scheduled to go to Japan in November. I would have had to go if it hadn't been for Paul Tibbetts and his bomb. Or our bomb, I'll put it that way.
O'BRIEN: But these veterans do not consider Tibbetts a hero.
FRANK CALDWELL, WORLD WAR II VETERAN: I'm not taking anything away from him, I wouldn't dare do that. It took a lot of courage to do what he did, and I admire him, but he was doing his job.
O'BRIEN: Would you consider yourself a hero?
TIBBETTS: No.
O'BRIEN: Why not?
TIBBETTS: Because I didn't go out there to do something to show off, that sort of thing. I was put in a place to get the job done, and I did it. And I don't think it took a hero to do that. It took somebody who knew what the hell they were doing, and that was me.
O'BRIEN: Paul Tibbetts IV has followed in his grandfather's footsteps and air force officer. He flies b-2 stealth bombers.
PAUL TIBBETS IV, GRANDSON: My grandfather says he was not a hero, because he was a soldier serving his country just like every other soldier that was serving with him. They were all serving their country, trying to take care of one another to make sure they made sure they made it through. That is what it was about, lets defeat the enemy make it through and survive.
TIBBETTS: I just remembered as a man that was given a job and he did it. No explanation, no nothing. I was given a job and I did it.
O'BRIEN: Simple as that. Are you proud of that statement?
TIBBETTS: Nobody did it before. Nobody had to do it since. O'BRIEN: And no one, including his grandson, may ever have to face that awful moral dilemma again, because Paul Tibbetts did his duty and helped distill the awful cruelty of human beings into a moment that cannot and should not be forgotten.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Coming up in our next half hour, some customer call centers are betting that a machine can do a better job than a human at knowing when a caller is ticked off.
And Philadelphia Eagles fans get a high-tech way to pay for their beer and cheese steaks. Those stories and a lot more are coming up after a break.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SIEBERG: Welcome back to NEXT@CNN. This next story I think is going to ring true with a lot of you out there. When you have to call a customer service line, do you ever just get a teeny bit annoyed when you think the person on the other end, if you're lucky enough to get a person, knows or even cares? Well, the people who run those centers apparently do care, because they're using technology to read customers' emotions. Julie Vallese has the story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JULIE VALLESE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This customer call center in Miami logs more than one million calls a month. Operators are answering consumer questions and complaints for companies that are household names. In fields like credit cards, fast food, and internet service. Some phones come with an eavesdropper, a new technology called NICE. The Israeli manufacturer says there's no particular significance to the name. Nice is capable of listening in on both sides of the conversation.
JOHN G. HALL, CEO PRECISION RESPONSE CORP.: We're able to monitor the customer interaction, what the consumer is looking for. We're able to monitor what our own agent's performance has been.
VALLESE: But can technology really do a better job of listening than the human ear? Yes.
EYAL DANON, DIR. OF MARKETING, NICE: The software listens to all the calls and measures key words, phrases, and emotions that are being displayed during the call.
VALLESE: Listen to this customer call. An actual discussion, but the names and voices have been changed.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you for calling BAR. This is Ted speaking. How may I help you?
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Yeah, I have a question about a late fee that's appearing on my billing statement.
VALLESE: So far, no problems no concerns, but keep listening.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And I'd like to get my statement every month, and I honestly really don't want to give I my account number.
DANON: So, that's the part where you saw a slight increase in the inflexion. "I honestly don't want to give you my bank account number." The entire rhythm changed and that's where the emotion detection kicks in.
VALLESE: And red flags go up something a person may not even notice, the software will.
(on camera): Any presumption of privacy is given up when consumers hear those family words: "This call may be recorded for quality assurance purposes."
(voice-over): And improved quality is what companies using this call center insist they are after. With NICE technology, they are better able to hear consumer complaints, respond to them more quickly, and in the end, be, well a little nicer.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SIEBERG: Well, China's DVD pirates aren't nice as all, at least if you ask the recording industry. And now one big distributor is launching a new campaign to fight back. Stan Grant reports from Beijing in our "Technofile" statement.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Let me tell you why we're here.
STAN GRANT, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Why we're here is cheap movies. Warner Home Video taking on the pirates of China at their own game.
JIM CARDWELL, PRESIDENT WARNER HOME VIDEO: Well, we have to get the legitimate product into the marketplace faster, so people don't have to wait for legitimate product. We have to be there simultaneous with the pirates.
GRANT: Quick release, the key, as well as price. Pirate DVD stores like this one getting the movies onto the shelves, often ahead of actual cinema release, and for next to nothing.
(on camera): When it comes pirated films, it really is a buyer's market, and at these prices, it's hard to imagine people staying away. You can buy new release films like "Sideways" or "Finding Neverland" for about one U.S. dollar. You can by entire TV series like, these episodes of "Seinfeld" for about 10 U.S. dollars.
(voice-over): Warner, part of the company that also owns CNN, is joining forces with local company, China Audio Video, to get the movies out for around two to three U.S. dollars. Cheap, but not as cheap as the pirates. And don't expect to see the big blockbusters like the "Harry Potter" films before they're in the cinema. CARDWELL: "Harry Potter" is not a title that we would go simultaneous with the pirates. We would look for theatrical release in China.
GRANT: Not as quick, not quite as cheap as the pirates, but Warner promises better quality than the counterfeit DVDs which are often filmed directly from the theater screen.
CARDWELL: The initial release is usually camcorded off a theatrical feature in the United States. So, you can see people going out for popcorn and, you know, the camera is shaking, and people are talking.
GRANT: Warner is hoping to cash in on this billion people market, but it won't be easy. The pirate stores are on every street corner. This one even offering to sell us a pirated Sony DVD player so we can watch our films for less than 100 U.S. dollars. The Chinese government is trying to crack down, last year confiscating 85 million pirated articles, 39 million audio/video products. It gives Warner a potent weapon -- the law is on their side.
CLINT EASTWOOD, ACTOR: Go ahead, make my day.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: Still to come, should weather forecasters be fined if they get it wrong? We'll meet a politician who thinks so.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SIEBERG: Medical science has made huge advances in the past 50 years, but medical recordkeeping, well, it seems to be stuck in the pencil and paper era. As Bill Tucker reports, it's not because the technology isn't out there.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
BILL TUCKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is not your grandfather's operating room. You're looking at a wire being guided through a patient's heart to clear the arteries. There is no denying technology's advancement in medicine, but when it comes to electronic files and records, most doctors' offices and hospitals still rely on paper. Change is coming. Already many hospitals are spending money to build networks and update their technology. In Massachusetts, one hospital is taking it a step further.
(on camera): Here at Beth Israel Deken (UNINTELLIGIBLE) Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, 35,000 patients are linked to their doctors and their medical records via the internet.
(voice-over): They use a service called "PatientSite." DR. JOHN HALAMIKA, CIO. HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL: PatientSite gives physicians and patients a shared medical record. The patients can see everything the doctors can see. They can send secure messages to their doctor, make appointments renew prescriptions, even pay their bills on-line.
TUCKER: Jerilyn Heinold uses PatientSite and it helped her avoid a misdiagnosis.
JERILYN HEINOLD, PATIENTSITE USER: I think that, again, we have to move after from the parent/child philosophy of healthcare into the partnership of healthcare. And technology is the tool that you need to have the most information you can when trying to determine what the best kind of healthcare is for you.
TUCKER: But technology is expensive, $30 million for a typical hospital to institute electronic recordkeeping. Studies show that 89 percent of the cost benefits from such systems go to insurance companies, which would suggest that they should share in financing those systems. Other problems to overcome including developing a set of standards to allow file sharing over the internet and deciding what, if any, the federal government's role should be. As exciting as technology is, one priority should never be forgotten.
DAVID LISS, V.R. N.Y. PRESPITARIAN HOSP.: There are things people are spectacular at: Taking care of others, providing care, touching a patient, helping a kid, given an injection, but helping somebody feel OK about it. Computers can't do that, people can.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SIEBERG: Well, it turns out it's the same story in the pharmacy. There are important tasks there that require the human touch, but the jobs could be done better electronically often are not. Casey Wian reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CASEY WIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Nine-year-old Carlos has a bad earache, hundreds of miles from home visiting his grandfather.
DR. ROBERT RIEWERTS, KAISER PERMANENTE: How can I help you today, Carlos?
CARLOS: My ear's hurting a lot.
WIAN: Though he's never seen this doctor, electronic health records allow immediate access to the boy's medical history. Prescribing an antibiotic is as simple as pointing and clicking. The pharmacy gets an e-message and 15 minutes later, Carlos gets his medicine.
RIEWERTS: The patients love it. They get the feel that things are being kept in a more efficient, as well as, accurate manner. WIAN: E-prescription technology isn't new. In 1998, the "Journal of American Medicine" recommended eliminating paper prescriptions by 2003, but today fewer than 10 percent of the nation's three billion prescriptions are filled electronically.
(on camera): According to a nonprofit group called the "e-Health Initiatives," adopting electronic prescriptions nationwide could save billions a year.
(voice-over): Plus thousands of lives. E-prescriptions reduce sometimes fatal errors from human mistakes or lack of information.
DR. ALLISON FOLEY, ST. JUDE HERITAGE MEDICAL GRP.: I was seeing a new patient for the first time and I decided that this patient needed an antibiotic for a repertory infection. I decided to choose a medication from the penicillin family, and immediately the system alerted me that this patient had had a life-threatening reaction to penicillin in the past.
WIAN: When the FDA pulled Vioxx from the market, warning letters went on the to 1,600 St. Jude patients within two hours. E- prescribing is growing among large healthcare companies, but the cost in the tens of thousands of dollars has deterred many private practioners.
DR. DAVID BRAULER, HEALTH & HUMAN SERVICE DEPT.: Small doctors' offices face financial barriers, but the benefits come back to patients in terms of better health status, fewer deaths, fewer errors, fewer times being spent being admitted to a hospital, and so we're looking at what we can do to help physicians along.
WIAN: The Bush administration is considering financial incentives in encouraging e-prescribing as part of the new Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit, and has more than doubled its budget request for medical records technology projects.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUNCER: Still to come, how to order a beer at the Philadelphia Eagles Stadium without fumbling for cash or a credit card.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SIEBERG: Medical science has made huge advances in the past 50 years, but medical recordkeeping, well, it seems to be stuck in the pencil and paper era. As Bill Tucker reports, it's not because the technology isn't out there.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) BILL TUCKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is not your grandfather's operating room. You're looking at a wire being guided through a patient's heart to clear the arteries. There is no denying technology's advancement in medicine, but when it comes to electronic files and records, most doctors' offices and hospitals still rely on paper. Change is coming. Already many hospitals are spending money to build networks and update their technology. In Massachusetts, one hospital is taking it a step further.
(on camera): Here at Beth Israel Deken (UNINTELLIGIBLE) Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts, 35,000 patients are linked to their doctors and their medical records via the internet.
(voice-over): They use a service called "PatientSite."
DR. JOHN HALAMIKA, CIO. HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL: PatientSite gives physicians and patients a shared medical record. The patients can see everything the doctors can see. They can send secure messages to their doctor, make appointments renew prescriptions, even pay their bills on-line.
TUCKER: Jerilyn Heinold uses PatientSite and it helped her avoid a misdiagnosis.
JERILYN HEINOLD, PATIENTSITE USER: I think that, again, we have to move after from the parent/child philosophy of healthcare into the partnership of healthcare. And technology is the tool that you need to have the most information you can when trying to determine what the best kind of healthcare is for you.
TUCKER: But technology is expensive, $30 million for a typical hospital to institute electronic recordkeeping. Studies show that 89 percent of the cost benefits from such systems go to insurance companies, which would suggest that they should share in financing those systems. Other problems to overcome including developing a set of standards to allow file sharing over the internet and deciding what, if any, the federal government's role should be. As exciting as technology is, one priority should never be forgotten.
DAVID LISS, V.R. N.Y. PRESBYTERIAN HOSP.: There are things people are spectacular at: Taking care of others, providing care, touching a patient, helping a kid, given an injection, but helping somebody feel OK about it. Computers can't do that, people can.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SIEBERG: Well, it turns out it's the same story in the pharmacy. There are important tasks there that require the human touch, but the jobs could be done better electronically often are not. Casey Wian reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CASEY WIAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Nine-year-old Carlos has a bad earache, hundreds of miles from home visiting his grandfather. DR. ROBERT RIEWERTS, KAISER PERMANENTE: How can I help you today, Carlos?
CARLOS: My ear's hurting a lot.
WIAN: Though he's never seen this doctor, electronic health records allow immediate access to the boy's medical history. Prescribing an antibiotic is as simple as pointing and clicking. The pharmacy gets an e-message and 15 minutes later, Carlos gets his medicine.
RIEWERTS: The patients love it. They get the feel that things are being kept in a more efficient, as well as, accurate manner.
WIAN: E-prescription technology isn't new. In 1998, the "Journal of American Medicine" recommended eliminating paper prescriptions by 2003, but today fewer than 10 percent of the nation's three billion prescriptions are filled electronically.
(on camera): According to a nonprofit group called the "e-Health Initiatives," adopting electronic prescriptions nationwide could save billions a year.
(voice-over): Plus thousands of lives. E-prescriptions reduce sometimes fatal errors from human mistakes or lack of information.
DR. ALLISON FOLEY, ST. JUDE HERITAGE MEDICAL GRP.: I was seeing a new patient for the first time and I decided that this patient needed an antibiotic for a repertory infection. I decided to choose a medication from the penicillin family, and immediately the system alerted me that this patient had had a life-threatening reaction to penicillin in the past.
WIAN: When the FDA pulled Vioxx from the market, warning letters went on the to 1,600 St. Jude patients within two hours. E- prescribing is growing among large healthcare companies, but the cost in the tens of thousands of dollars has deterred many private practioners.
DR. DAVID BRAULER, HEALTH & HUMAN SERVICE DEPT.: Small doctors' offices face financial barriers, but the benefits come back to patients in terms of better health status, fewer deaths, fewer errors, fewer times being spent being admitted to a hospital, and so we're looking at what we can do to help physicians along.
WIAN: The Bush administration is considering financial incentives in encouraging e-prescribing as part of the new Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit, and has more than doubled its budget request for medical records technology projects.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANNOUCER: Still to come, how to order a beer at the Philadelphia Eagles stadium without fumbling for cash or a credit card. (END VIDEOTAPE)
SIEBERG: The newest knight of the British Empire is a familiar face to tech-heads, Microsoft founder Bill Gates. He received the honorary knighthood on Wednesday, from Queen Elizabeth. It's honorary because Gates is not British. And he can't call himself Sir Bill, but can put the initials KBE for Knight-commander of the British Empire after his name. He was honored for his charitable activities and contributions to high-tech business in Britain.
At one stadium you can spend more time watching the game and less time standing in the beer line thanks to new technology. Andy Serwer has the story.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
ANDY SERWER, "FORTUNE" MAGAZINE: So Philadelphia Eagles fans didn't get everything they wanted this season, but they may have scored one lasting victory in the battle of man versus beer line. This year the Eagles became the first sports franchise to roll out PowerPay to its concession lines. Consider it a toll tag for sports fans.
(on camera): So, you got your PowerPay here?
BILL MARTIN, FAN: Absolutely, it's the only way to go pay for beers. No more change or worry about $20 bill flying out the stadium.
SERWER (voice-over): These tiny tags have radio frequency antennas embedded inside. Fans sign up before the game and link it to a credit card for free. Just swipe the tag and your credit card is automatically billed. PowerPay holders also get their own lines at some food stands. Still, the Eagles say fans were slow to sign up.
MARK DONOVAN, EAGLES VICE PRESIDENT: This is a show-me town. They want to see it, they want to see it work, they want to understand what it is, so it sort of ramped up slowly.
SERWER: One big concern, security. PowerPay doesn't require a PIN number or signature, so if you lose the card, you could end up paying for a round of beers for a stadiumfull of Donovan McNab fans. SMART System Technologies, the company behind PowerPay, says no cash is key.
MICHAEL RICHARDSON, SMART SYSTEM TECHNOLOGIES: What happens is the consumers gets to go through that line faster, and they tend to buy a little bit more that way, as well.
SERWER: Eighteen percent more on an average purchase, according to the company.
IRA COHEN, FAN: Yeah, I got four kids, and they're always eating, so this way I don't have to stand in line all the time.
I need three hot chocolates, large water, bag of peanuts.
Badda binge, badda boom, very quick. There it is.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SIEBERG: Let's see, beer, technology and football? It sounds like it might appeal to some guys.
All right, that's all the time we have for, but here's what's coming next week:
Ranchers, hunters, and animal lovers are at odds over the Bison in Yellowstone National Park, and how to handle them when they wander out of the park.
That's coming up on NEXT. Until then, let's hear from you. You can send us an e-mail at NEXT@CNN.com. And don't forget to check out our website, that's at cnn.com/next.
Thanks so much for joining us, for all of us, I'm Daniel Sieberg, we'll see you next time.
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