Most lab results still on paper, impeding push for e-health records

Digitizing medical lab tests is one of the key components of a plan to develop a national electronic health record system, but the majority of lab reports are issued in paper form, one of the top executives heading up the initiative told a health policy panel on Tuesday. About 200,000 medical labs operate in the United States, including 8,500 in hospitals, 5,200 commercial labs and about 115,000 in clinicians' offices. Most fail to use standards when reporting test results, even when exchanging them electronically, Micky Tripathi, co-chair of the Information Technology Policy Committee's information exchange work group, told the Health Information Technology Policy Committee. The panel is in charge of setting policies for electronic health records.