This American Family Physician newsletter reports astonishingly low (to me, anyway) adoption of electronic records systems. Electronic billing and scheduling - yes, but medical records - no. Only 17% of physicians offices use electronic records? And only 8% of physicians use a computerized order entry system, which has the benefits of checking for drug interactions, standard doses, and allergies.

Is there an opportunity here or not? Java in combination with open source software has been very successful in scheduling and patient management in Brazil, and in fact, there was a fantastic BOF on this topic at JavaOne in SanFrancisco this past summer. One of the presenters, and the lead developer, Fabiane Bizinella Nardon received a Duke award for this project. There's some interesting discussion about the technology in this ServerSide thread. Brazil is planning to add medical records to this system in the future.

So, if there is a need, quantifiable benefits, the technology is available, and has been successfully deployed, what's holding back adoption of such applications? There was quite a bit of discussion of this following the BOF. It's an interesting question...