When they were first introduced, EMRs, also referred to as EHRs (electronic health records), were seen as having the potential to transform health care, improving safety and streamlining patient treatment across different hospitals and fields. In many ways, that has been the case. Doctors who use them can now check lab reports and read patient charts from anywhere with the click of a button, and it is more difficult to misplace or misread information.

But multiple reports have shown doctors in the US do not want to switch over, finding the digitized records a less efficient, more impersonal, and error-ridden alternative to the paper system they know. Doctors complain that clunky "meaningful use" requirements, which were force doctors who accept Medicare to show that they are making use of the EMRs by recording a minimum number of "objectives," slow down their practices and drastically reduce the number of patients they can see.