Much Evidence Still in Paper Files.

The article focuses on the use of patients' records as a source of data for comparative effectiveness research (CER). Many supporters of CER are anticipating that existing data will become richer in the coming years as electronic health records become more sophisticated and widely used. But many experts are saying that it will be a long time before electronic health records become the norm because existing data tend to have slightly different information and are not precisely comparable enough for scientific investigation.