SPRINGFIELD --St. John's Hospital is on its way to taking all of its medical records online.

As of Friday, 75% of St. John's doctors were using the electronic system. The hospital plans to have all online by July -- with hopes that the move will drastically improve quality and reduce costs.

The goal: a patient's pain, prognosis and prescriptions will be just one click away.

"The problem we had in the past is when you had the paper record, every place that person goes, that paper record is different," said Dr. Rick Williams of St. John's.

Doctors believe that shredding the paper load will reduce errors and improve patient care.  For instance, instead of shuffling through files, this system uses bright colors to warn the doctor about a patient's allergic reaction to penicillin

"It helps prevent those medication allergies. It looks at the medicines that I wrote, that John wrote, that the cardiologist wrote last week and compare them for all of us," explained Williams.

Images included in the better visualize the problem areas for patients.  You could call it a one-stop shop for docs.

"We do know there will be significant reduction in the number of errors," said St. John's CEO Kim Day, although he acknowledged he had no data to prove it.

The downside is portability.

Due to privacy and liability concerns, Congress has so far resisted creating a nationwide standard.  That's something Congressman Roy Blunt would like to see changed.

"I think the one flaw in that big number is we haven't yet gone to the standardized set of criteria that would make that just a transferable record easily transferable throughout all system in the country," Blunt said.

The system St. John's is using isn't cheap.  Officials say the program alone costs about $300 million dollars.

To watch more of Dave's interview with Congressman Roy Blunt Friday, head to the KY3 Political Notebook.

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