This article in Wired magazine has it right. It's a brief but insightful discussion of the current state of health care medical records.
Trying to get these vendor systems to talk to each other is extremely difficult and the vendors don't want a database administrator or developer into their medical records database.
My wife had an interesting experience today. She went to her doctor and expected that she would be able to see some tests results another doctor ordered. But her doctor today can't see them until the other doctor sends them to her. Both of these doctors are in the same health care network and my wife's expectation or conceptual model (usability term alert!) is that they could all see all of the records that pertain to her in one location. Even inside the same electronic medical record system that is not necessarily true.
