January 28, 2009 - 6:12 PM

(NEWSCHANNEL 3) - Part of the stimulus package that President Obama hopes to have signed into law by February includes $20 billion to help computerize medical records.

 So many offices and doctors still rely on paper charts, but is it worth it to digitize the doctor's office?

 Many things are already digital, including internal hospital records, but if everything were digital and standard, sharing would be easier, and the idea is already being considered in Southwest Michigan.

 Auri Cooper and Mary Nash are going to be grandmothers, and they're waiting for good news. They know more hospital visits are coming, and favor the idea of electronic medical records everyone can share.

 "I think it's a wonderful idea, because we lived in Virginia for a number of years and when we moved back to Michigan and we needed our medical records it became a problem," said Cooper.

"When we were in the army, they lost my medical records and we were in Japan, and coming back here, they said I had to have all the shots again," said Nash.

 In an era when patients can go from one hospital to another, sharing records isn't easy. Digitizing them could send old hospital filing systems the way of mercury thermometers.

 Dr. Robert Brush says patients often can't provide needed information, and many errors could be avoided if doctors had things as simple as a list of patient medication, something easy access electronic records could provide.

 "I know it could save lives, I'm convinced of that," said Dr. Brush, Borgess Chief Quality Officer. "If I could see their old X-Ray and compare it to what I have now, it would save me lots of time and be very, very helpful."

Borgess' records are computerized and the hospital hopes to join a regional sharing system that's already being developed. It's called the Southwest Michigan Health Information Exchange, and George Dix says it would span seven counties, allowing for confidential record sharing.

 "It has been a national initiative that each state is looking at it individually, how each state would exchange info would be critical," said Dix, Chief Information Officer at Borgess Health.

 Some say the stimulus package's medical records provision doesn't take privacy issues into account, but the grandmothers-to-be that Newschannel 3 spoke to were more concerned with the ease it could bring.

 "I don't have the phobias with the computer that a lot of people do," said Cooper.

 The Southwest Michigan Health Information Exchange hasn't been implemented, but it is a nearly ready job, one that stimulus money could help launch.