There’s a Library Analogy Here

And we end up looking even better as a result.

Link to June 19 New York Times article, "Most Doctors Aren’t Using Electronic Health Records ".

Excerpt: Bringing patient records into the computer age, experts say, is crucial to improving care, reducing errors and containing costs in the American health care system. The slow adoption of the technology is mainly economic. Most doctors in private practice, especially those in small practices, lack the financial incentive to invest in computerized records.

There’s a Library Analogy Here

In 1986, the Middleton Public Library was a member of a (Geac) library automation consortium that went by the name of SCROLL (South Central Online Libraries). The group included – what was at the time – the largest public libraries in the South Central Library System: Madison, Dane County Library System, Middleton, Sun Prairie, Monona, Stoughton, Oregon, Verona, Monroe, Baraboo, Reedsburg, and Portage.

This consortium, renamed LINK (Library Interchange Network) when it migrated to a Dynix system in 1994, now boasts 41 members. The majority of the new members represent small libraries in communities of less than 4,000 population.

Why can’t regional, state, and national medical associations work together to provide the necessary kind of support system that libraries have developed?