Electronic Health Records Their Time Has Come

摘要

In 1991, when portable computers were the size of sewing machines and the World Wide Web was aborning, the Institute of Medicine proposed a plan for how emerging technologies could be used to improve medical recordkeeping. The plan high-lighted the potential of health information systems in general, and computer-based patient records specifically, to support health care professionals as they make decisions at the point of care. It also called for developing a national health information infrastructure. The goal was to achieve ubiquitous use of such patient records by all U.S. health care delivery organizations by 2001.