One hospital’s paper trail

Admitting

You go to the emergency department. Normally, a staffer enters your name, birth date, and gender using a laptop computer and beams the information to the hospital's network. In minutes, computers check your records with the insurance company and fill in your address, coverage information, and so on.

Without computer links, paper forms were filled out on clipboards; distributing copies took about 20 minutes.

Doctor's notes


SOURCE: Dianne Anderson and Dr. John Halamka, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center