Japan mulls P2P for patient info

P2P filesharing gets a bad rep from the recording and and movie industries, who're apt to paint it as a technology that doesn't have any legitimate uses. However, the Japanese government's National Institute of Communications and Information Technology is experimenting with a P2P network that links up 16 hospitals and allows them to do high-speed searches and transfers of encrypted patient information and high-quality 3D moving images. The aim is to avoid doubling up on medical tests, avoid the risk of double-dosing patients with drugs, and make sure that their medical histories are immediately available even if they switch hospitals. We assume they've built in a feature to stop interns from using it to swap J-Pop albums in their free time.