Abstract

Are we waiting for Godot? W e have been waiting for elec-tronic medical records (EMRs) toimprove chronic disease care for a long time (1). Availability of sophisti-cated EMR systems has enticed an in-creasing number of health plans and medical groups to invest resources in such systems. Many EMR systems are able to improve documentation of care, com-munication of clinical information across sites, and measurement of productivity and variation in care (2). Inpatient EMR systems have led to improvements in care in some clinical domains (3). However, the potential impact of outpatient EMR use on quality of chronic disease care has