Electronic Medical Record System: Current Status and Its Use to Support Universal Healthcare System

Abstract

Information technology's use in the United States healthcare marketplace, known as health IT (HIT), significantly lags behind that of other industries and leaves much room for improvement. While many industries already use information technology (IT) to improve efficiency, the healthcare industry has not made any significant progress toward widespread use of HIT. Although some hospitals and physician clinics have begun using HIT, the industry as a whole is still pessimistic toward the improvement and implementation of costly HIT functions such as electronic medical records (EMR) and their interoperability in current and future healthcare systems. As federal mandate requires all healthcare providers to implement EMR system by 2014, this study suggests an integrated framework that would make EMR a vital component to ensure the success of the new universal healthcare system.