I can imagine an usecase - if your relative or friend is unexplainably not found at home or office, so is effectively 'disappeared' from you - then in a pre-internet era you might not want to search all the hospitals in new york to check if (s)he's there.
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Not all that long ago newspapers published all hospital admissions and discharges.
Really?
What would that information possibly be useful for?
I don't know if newspapers were publishing it, but this story is not very comforting:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-06-05/states-hospital-dat...
I can imagine an usecase - if your relative or friend is unexplainably not found at home or office, so is effectively 'disappeared' from you - then in a pre-internet era you might not want to search all the hospitals in new york to check if (s)he's there.