The slightly delayed Digital Hospitals Handbook and news that Telstra Health had been granted access to the My Health Record system for its HealthNow app may have been the most popular stories on Pulse+IT this week, but out in the wider health and IT communities one story dominated, and that was the Guardian newspaper's discovery that Medicare numbers were for sale in the darker recesses of the internet.

Guardian journalist Paul Farrell was able to buy his own number for the price of a few bitcoins from a cheery-sounding vendor on the dark web, and his resulting story made waves around the country on Tuesday. It doesn't appear that everyone's numbers have been released but Mr Farrell's investigations show that the vendor had made a few tidy sales, numbering about 75 all up.