Today's healthcare system is complex and interconnected. Despite the intricacies of these connections, many practices are still using paper-based systems that developed during much simpler times. One expert says this could pose problems for the future of care and that more use of technology like EHRs is needed.

Shahid Shah, a software IT analyst, told Healthcare IT News that practices must be able to freely share patients' electronic health records with each other in order to deliver the highest quality of care. Otherwise, information may fall through the cracks of the complex healthcare system.

"Today's reality of patient management is 'disjointed care,' and most of the players in a patient's care don’t know what each other is doing for the patient in real time," Shah told the news source.

He added that EHRs have the potential to make care more social, collaborative and integrated, which are three adjectives that would rarely be applied to today's healthcare system.

A recent article published in the Annals of Family Medicine pointed out that this fragmentation is partially responsible for the high costs and relatively poor outcomes delivered by today's healthcare system.