Electronic Medical Records

This is a very interesting article about electronic medical record keeping.

When Hurricane Katrina displaced thousands of Gulf Coast residents, many medical professionals pointed out that electronic records would have helped them treat evacuees with injuries and chronic illnesses more effectively - many patients could not remember crucial information about their medical histories, and their records were inaccessible and possibly destroyed forever in the storm.

Most doctors agree that electronic medical record keeping is a good idea, but it can be very costly to implement. The program described in this article is receiving federal funding as a "pilot" program which will they hope will demonstrate how effective and important electronic record keeping is.