If a used car dealer can pull up an applicant's complete credit report in a matter of seconds, emergency room physicians ought to be able to get their hands quickly on the medical records of a patient brought in to the hospital in a diabetic coma. Yet unless someone with a knowledge of the patient's history is on hand, ER doctors have to fly blind through the diagnosis and initial treatment.

Unfortunately, the U.S. is still a long way from the universal medical records system President Bush and public health advocates have called for by 2014. That's why Gov. Sonny Perdue is right to offer up Georgia as a test site for $150 million in federal grants to let doctors do much more than is possible with paper charts by integrating a patient's medical history, lab results and current medications into one electronic interface. The Department of Health and Human Services expects to award the grants later this year.

Making medical records available electronically has the potential to reduce medical costs and save lives through the elimination of errors. An estimated 130,000 life-threatening drug reactions could be prevented annually by better coordination of patient medical and prescription records, experts say.

While hospitals have recently begun to purchase the technology to enhance patient records and safety, physicians have been alarmingly slow to embrace the concept. Private-practice groups —- especially those not connected to larger health networks —- are afraid of the startup costs of switching from paper to electronic records.

That's where the HHS grants come in. With an average of $10 million to $15 million in grants in designated regions, these sites can't be expected to enroll all doctors, but they could stimulate interest in the concept and help physicians "learn how to share the benefits" of a coordinated system, HHS Secretary Michael Leavitt said.

Security problems —- including safeguarding confidential health information —- would be considerable, but not insurmountable. The benefits, including creating databases that would allow for measuring quality and cost of care, would be worth the effort. Rather than filling out the same forms every time you see a new physician, you'd carry a card with important medical information about you encoded on it.

Electronic medical records will eventually make their way into all facets of medicine. The sooner we get there, the better.

—- Mike King, for the editorial board (mking@ajc.com)