Electronic Medical Records: A Silicon Valley Gold Rush

Patients at Dr. Surinder Saini’s Newport Beach (Calif.) office are no longer given a clipboard upon arrival. Instead, they’re handed an iPad, where they tick off symptoms and allergies with the touch of a finger. A nurse uses her own iPad to plug in vital signs. In the exam room, Saini summons the data by tapping on his tablet and is aided by a list of likely diagnoses for, say, abdominal pain. “Most patients are amazed,” says the gastroenterologist. After the visit, Saini dictates his notes about the patient straight into the iPad, where they’re instantly transcribed and stored with other records.

Lured by new technologies and financial incentives from the U.S. government, doctors are throwing out stacks of paper and replacing them with handheld computers. The programs, made by heavyweights such as Allscripts (MDRX) and Cerner (CERN) as well as a raft of scrappy Silicon Valley startups, promise to save physicians time and help them make smarter decisions based on reliable data that are accessible online...