Is SaaS the solution for electronic medical records?

The powers which be here at ZDNet sent me an overwrought press release recently from Practice Fusion.

That's a small San Francisco company which is selling electronic medical records (EMRs) as a service. (The name sounds like a North Korean nuclear test, and this is what Google Images delivers when you enter the term.)

Software as a Service, or SaaS, is a bit like the ASP idea from a decade ago, only now the Internet may have the speed to handle it.

Since its launch in October, Practice Fusion says it has signed up 100 physicians from 70 different practices. This makes it "a leading force in the healthcare IT revolution," according to the press release.

The pitch is that, by buying EMR capability as a service, you have no upfront investment, no hardware costs, no big software license, just a $50/month support fee and shiny happy people.

I can't comment on the quality of Practice Fusion's offering -- maybe you can -- but the idea of running EMRs as hosted software has some merit. Only what happens to the data when you decide to leave?