12.27.11 Lee Bairnsfather imagines that someday soon, when a patient arrives in a hospital emergency room, medical personnel can immediately access the person’s complete medical history — all the past treatments, all the diagnoses made, all the medications taken — regardless of when and where the care was previously delivered.

Today, all the different records are stored with different caregivers, said Bairnsfather, LSU system assistant vice president for information and technology. Consolidating the medical records electronically — one patient, one record — would go a long way toward avoiding duplicate and inefficient care.