Oregon Business Magazine, February 2000
For the Record
Two Oregon companies – MedicaLogic and WellMed – are becoming national leaders in a new kind of Internet application: electronic medical records.
By Teri Cettina
When Dr. Carl Erickson arrives at his Cascade Family Practice office each day, one of the first things he does is boot up his computer and jump on the Internet. He’s not checking stock quotes or reading the latest headlines – he’s pulling up medical records for the patients he’ll see that day.
Erickson, a Portland physician in private practice, is one of the first doctors in the country to use an electronic medical records program created by Hillsboro’s MedicaLogic Inc. The new product, Logician Internet, lets doctors replace their old paper charts with electronic files.
Gone are the days of illegible chart notes and inch-thick collections of laboratory test results. With a personal computer, custom software and Internet access, Erickson now can download patient charts from a secure electronic storage site, update them on his computer during patient exams, and return them to the central database for safekeeping. “There’s no question in my mind: this is the future of medical records,” Erickson says.
MedicaLogic is just one of the Oregon companies taking a national lead in the race to capitalize on the e-healthcare movement. Portland’s WellMed Inc. is another young start-up drawing attention for an innovative product that brings the power of the Web to medical care. Unlike MedicaLogic’s current offering, WellMed’s services are aimed at consumers.
Full article text available upon request.
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