According to a USA Today article, only 1.5 percent of hospitals have comprehensive electronic health records, and eight percent have a basic version. But that could all change soon. Congress dedicated $30 billion of the economic stimulus package to help hospitals and doctors create electronic records – an investment that should save the country $10 billion over time. “We’ve been saying that we’re five years away from electronic medical records for the past 40 years,” said Stephanie Reel ’85, chief information officer at Johns Hopkins University. “Now maybe we really are only five years away.”
The article, “High-tech ‘scribes’ help transfer medical records into electronic form,” ran October 7.
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