Paperless technology in health care industry settings is long overdue. Now it appears that the time is right for one of the biggest transformations in recordkeeping that the medical world has yet seen. Soon we will be saying goodbye to those bulky, cumbersome charts that are stuffed to overflowing with endless pages of charting and mind boggling facts and data that are often impossible to decipher by anyone other than the original writer.

It seems as though there are some tremendous benefits from choosing the paperless technology route, especially in the health care industry. Kaiser Permanente is at the forefront of this new surge in the medical field to use electronic record keeping procedures and the interest is soaring across the nation.

The plans for this type of paper-free system has been in the works for a number of years but only recently has there been any real progress made. Part of this new push has to do with new technology spurred by VoIP and similar innovative electronic marvels. A major part of the push is due to Obama's multibillion dollar inducement to ditch paper records in favor of computerized systems.

For many decades written records have been the mainstay for hospitals, clinics, doctors and nurses. Unfortunately since the early 1980s these written recordings have multiplied astronomically. Many in the health field have complained about the obsessive style of writing that has become the "gold standard" for even the most minor occurrence.

If a patient has a slight fever of 99 F you can count on this one fact to be recorded at least several times in one day. Not only will it be recorded multiple times, there will be multiple individuals all recording this one occurrence several times on their own. Usually it will be documented by a nursing assistant or patient care tech. Then the nurse overseeing the patient's care must document it. The doctor and his assistants will also duly record this fact and then the medical record's transcriptionist must ensure that this fact is typed if the doctor includes it in any taped notes. You can easily see the sheer amount of time and effort this one lone and often insignificant fact can involve

There are still a number of debates ongoing concerning going paperless in the medical industry. Some argue that this practice is not really going to save any health care dollars in the long run. Others complain that it is only being pushed to make the work load easier. Some insist that relying upon electronic, paper-free records can lead to more mistakes that are much easier to overlook until they result in a major problem.

Whether or not any of these complaints will prove to be substantially true remains to be seen. What is know is that transitioning to electronic record keeping should mean an improvement in the quality of patient care, less stress for hospital workers and a reduction in the number of duplicated procedures and tests that are now being documented. It also means that even the medical industry is choosing a Greener Commitment to our planet by saving millions of trees each year.