Electronic medical records are more complete and understandable than paper records. In a cross sectional study of 529 records in 25 general practices, Hippisley-Cox and colleagues (p 1439) found that 89% of paperless records and 70% of paper records were medically understandable. Almost 90% of paperless records had at least one diagnosis, compared with 32% of paper based records. Drug dose reporting was far better in the electronic records than in the paper records (87% versus 33%). However, from interviews the authors found that the method of reporting did not affect the doctors' recall of patients or consultations.
Figure 1.
JOSH SHER/SPL