ANOTHER MARKET FAILURE

Computerizing medical records can improve health care but there's one problem: proprietary software. Different companies make systems that are largely incompatible and there's no market incentive for them to do otherwise.

Tech-savvy Seattle finds electronic health records no cure-all
By Julie Appleby | Kaiser Health News
Posted on Monday, August 10, 2009

For much of the country, linking the electronic records of doctors, hospitals and clinics remains an elusive goal. Even in tech-savvy Seattle, "no one is quite there yet," said Jim Bender, the medical director for health information at the city's Virginia Mason Medical Center.

Manufacturers have been slow to create systems that work together because they've wanted to emphasize their uniqueness in order to gain market share, Bender said.

The numbers indicate that we're just getting started,

Nationwide, only 1.5 percent of hospitals have full electronic medical-record systems, according to a recent report in the New England Journal of Medicine. Another 7.6 percent have basic systems in at least one area of the hospital. About 12 percent of doctors use electronic medical records, the Congressional Budget Office has estimated.

so the sooner we get compatibility, the better.