But what are the costs of such a conversion? While it's tragic that so many people seem to die from medical mistakes, what portion would be saved if an optimum electronic records system were in place and used effectively?
"The savings from making the transition to electronic health records, according to administration officials and health care experts, could be sizable in terms of both dollars and lives. The report estimates that if most patient records were in electronic form, the savings would be about $140 billion a year, or nearly 10 percent of the nation's annual health care bill.
Besides the cost savings from reduced paper handling, the automation of an electronic system could sharply reduce medical errors, which are estimated to be responsible for 45,000 to 98,000 deaths a year - more than breast cancer, AIDS or motor vehicle accidents, according to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences."
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