Objects, Databases, and the World Wide Web

Medical statistics:

30% of medical records are not available
11% of lab tests must be reordered
38% of physicians and 50% of nurses time is spent on documentation
70% of data needs of physicians are unmet during patient visit
27% of records have missing information
40% of diagnoses are unrecorded
76B is spent on drug interaction related disease and death each year
U.S. physicians are 5% automated. U.K. physicians are 60% automated.
In the emergency room your medical record is your skin.

U.S. healthcare is roughly the same as the Irish Post Office before it was automated. Thousands of clerks kept millions of slips of paper, some of which were more than 100 years old. Most of it was filed away in boxes that were inaccessible.

References

Wall Street Journal, April 1992.