Only a minority of physician practices use electronic records.

This is becoming a decisive factor when recruiting newly graduated doctors, who are groomed on digital systems in academic medical centers, and raised on the Internet.

A survey of Vanderbilt medical students found that 80 percent, when placed in environments of lower health IT utilization, reported “feeling less able to practice safe patient care, to utilize evidence at the point of care, to work efficiently, to share and communicate information, and to work effectively within the local system.”

Perhaps this can be an impetus to resolve the inertia some practices face when deciding whether or not to adopt electronic record systems.