Electronic Medical Records... Are they changing?

We have seen the change from paper medical records to electronic medical records in the larger hospitals across the nation. However, what is interesting is that some private practices have still not made this transition due to the cost of expensive medical records software. Closer to date there have been two alternative situations presented to us. One is by the french owned company google. Google allows the user to keep up with their own medical records and have them faxed to a healthcare clinic. This allows the user to not only make sure they are familarized with what goes on with their own body, but it also makes it easier for private practices, who do not have modern facilities to work with their patients. This allows a sort of teamwork and cooperation that has not been seen to this level between doctor and patient. I am very interested to see how this effects the healthcare industry.

Walmart is leading the change in retail software provided to family clinics. Knowing that less than 20% of U.S. doctors use electronic medical records, Wal-Mart is seeking to provide the practices with discounted software. Wal-mart has never been known to provide much software to the health care technology market, yet they are the leaders in a revolutionary ground breaking affordable e-record software. It is being presented to small practices that still operate under paper documentation. The package deal will come with desktop pc from Dell and software provided and made by EClinicalWorks. This should hit the market in the spring. For the practices that just recently upgraded their desktops, perhaps Walmart will take this option in consideration and offer for sale the software by EClinicalWorks seperately. As for now i have only heard of a package bargain and not sold seperately, yet i'm sure the company will have some forsight.

resource - Eve Lopez