I mentioned anecdotally a while back that GPs in New Zealand and the UK are very advanced in their in-office IT use. A GP I stayed with there last March was using a computer to type his patient notes while the patient was in the office.  He was no fresh young doc, in fact he’s much closer to retirement than to hanging his shingle. So what caused this transformation? A national system, national planning, the creation of a single health identifier for everyone in the country, and funding for the technology.  The result is shown in this piece by the New Zealand Health IT Cluster:

80% of GPs use an EMR
95% of GPs, 100% of laboratories and 100% of radiology clinics are connected to the Health Data Network.

More from iHealthbeat