Abstract
Introduction by the column editor: Nearly four decades ago, psychiatrists were touting the potential of electronic medical records to tighten the connection between research and clinical care. Data on all clinical care would be captured for research, and all research results would perch at the clinician's fingertips. The years have passed, and the enthusiasm has waned. The ten-year period starting in 1967 turned out to be a high water mark for the publication of articles on electronic medical records in mainstream psychiatric journals. The number of such articles plunged to almost zero in the 1980s before rebounding modestly in the 1990s (1).The biggest obstacle has been getting psychiatrists to use such systems. The rate at which psychiatrists have adopted information technology trails behind even the poky rate of other physicians (2). Some organizations, notably the Department of Veterans Affairs medical centers, have succeeded in implementing a robust electronic medical record. This column reports on the success of a psychiatric department at a major university medical center in developing and implementing its own psychiatry-focused electronic medical record. The ambitious aims of the project—to develop a system to guide care and to form a consortium of universities to generate a huge database for clinical research—deserve support.