Kaiser Permanente E-Health Records

Having access to a patients electronic health records can save time, money and lives according to a report in the New England Journal of Medicine. Unfortunately the cost of implementing a comprehensive system is expensive - at around $80,000 per doctor the figure may be too costly for small practices. But for Kaiser Permanente the cost was small compared to the potential savings and the reason is a simple one - Kaiser Permanente owns hospitals, pharmacies and labs, and the doctors only see patients insured by Kaiser - so it made sense for everyone to have access to the same information.

How Kaiser Permanente Went Paperless - BusinessWeek

Today, all of its medical clinics and two-thirds of its hospitals operate in a paperless environment and the rest are scheduled to be completely digitized by next year. Across the system, about 14,000 physicians access electronic medical records for 8.7 million patients across nine states.

Within 18 months of installing electronic medical records, the rate of patient visits to doctors' offices and clinics and the emergency department fell by about 7%