'A Long Way to Go'

How far does the Obama administration have to go in moving the nation to full use of electronic medical records?

Here's a slide that shows we've got a bit of a journey. (This was part of a presentation Ed Meagher, former deputy chief information officer at the Veterans Affairs and Interior departments and now director strategic health care initiatives at SRA International, gave on Tuesday during a Government executive webinar.)

Nearly half of hospitals have yet to make it past stage 2 in a seven-step stage process to a completely functioning electronic medical record system. Stage 2, if you can't read the slide, has a controlled medical library and may have document imaging. Only 10 percent of hospitals have moved beyond stage 3, which includes flow sheets for nurses and error checking.

"We have a long way to go," Meagher said.