Off the Record — Avoiding the Pitfalls of Going Electronic

Many of us remember searching frantically for a lost chart or misfiled laboratory result in the wee hours of the morning as we cared for a sick patient in the emergency ward, or requesting in vain the most recent note from a specialist about a patient who returned to our office after a consultation. The ultimate goal of the electronic medical record — a technological solution being championed by the Bush administration, the presidential candidates, and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, as well as Google, Microsoft, and many insurance companies — is to make all patient information immediately accessible and . . .