U. S. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) speaks with Alex Lickerman (left in foreground), Assistant Professor in Medicine, and Eric Yablonca, Vice President and CIO for the University Hospitals, following a press conference at the University of Chicago Comer Children’s Hospital. Obama was there to promote a new medical records bill being proposed by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and U.S. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. He spoke of the importance of improved information gathering, storage and sharing in improving medical care, preventing medical error, and reducing health care costs. Lickerman, the physician sponsor for the Hospitals’ five-year program to install a new, comprehensive clinical information system, explained how that system would improve information sharing. Pediatric neuroradiologist Dianna Bardo (seated behind Obama) discussed the advanced medical imaging being used at the Hospitals, which is integral to sharing information for improved patient care. Ira Wolke (seated in background), Clinical Associate in Radiology, also joined the discussion.