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www managedcaremag.com USA Cover Story Nobody doubts that the electronic medical record will promote better medicine, but at what cost? And to whom? Providers fear that they will bear the weight. Electronic Medical Records: High Hopes Meet Harsh Reality By John Carroll Contributing Editor For years, advocates of a comprehensive system of electronic medical records (EMRs) have had to settle for the moral high ground in the U.S., cheering on individual initiatives of the best and brightest institutions, confident that their case would achieve eventual victory, often ignored while lamenting the glacial pace of overall progress. But for two days in July, it was their time to bask under the sun of top-level approval. The nation's highest political powers — including the president — had just seized on information technology as one of the most important instruments to be used to rein in runaway costs and ratchet up quality. And a new federal electronic health record cz...

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