Kaiser to use database to find cures for disease

Kaiser Permanente is expanding a database of DNA and other medical information donated by patients to use in research it hopes will lead to groundbreaking cures and treatments for some of the most common chronic diseases. The health system, which started collecting data from patients in California in 2008, said it now will track patient data from members across the country, including those it treats in Maryland. It believes the national Kaiser Research Bank could become one of the country's largest and most diverse repositories of health data.