The Role of Informatics and Electronic Health Record in Current Medical Practice: What Are the Benefits of Medical Informatics to the Clinician?

President Bush in 2004 put forth the goal that every American would have an electronic health record by 2014 (Simborg W. J Am Med Inform Assoc. 2008;15(2):127–91). The impetus behind the aggressive carryover of records to electronic form stemmed from trying to fix inefficiencies in the hospital and improve quality. Quality improvement, reduction of errors, and fixing systems within hospitals were seen as potential ways to decrease the cost of healthcare in the United States. Medicare and Medicaid currently have incentive programs for EHR (EHR Incentive programs. (n.d.). Retrieved 30 Dec 2014, from http://www.cms.gov/Regulations-and Guidance/Legislation/ EHRIncentivePrograms/index.html?redirect=/EHRIncentivePrograms/).