Pitching Cost Savings of Electronic Medical Records to a Skeptical Populace

Many Americans are angry, even furious, at Democratic Congressmen who are holding town hall meetings across the nation talking up the various Democratic plans to overhaul the medical system. Concerns are that such an overhaul will bankrupt everyone involved.

Democrats and others in favor of large-scale medical reform are countering these fiscal irresponsibility arguments by restating claims of how much money can and will be saved by making major changes to the system.

Document imaging is at the heart of such cost savings plans, because document imaging is the first step to moving all medical records into digital format. However, how much money can actually be saved through electronic medical records is uncertain.

Nevertheless, our current medical record-keeping technology systems can only be described as poor overall, as measured against other industries. David Goldhall points out some of these inefficiencies in his moving essay, "How American Health Care Killed My Father."

This is certainly a hot issue that will continue to be hotly debated.