William H. Frist: “I thank my colleague in this endeavor. As mentioned earlier, we began working on the information technology aspects of…”

“I thank my colleague in this endeavor. As mentioned earlier, we began working on the information technology aspects of health care about a year ago and published our first op-ed together about July of last year. In closing, this is not going to be an easy process. I look back at the technology in my past in medicine for 20 years, but then also in my dad's practice; he practiced medicine for 55 years. I remember he had one of the very earliest electrocardiogram, EKG, machines in the State of Tennessee. At that time--because there were so few machines and so few cardiologists--he would take referrals from all over the State of Tennessee. The machine itself was bigger than the desk before me, at the time. What would happen then is, if there was a machine in a little rural community 100 miles away from Nashville, the machine there would take a piece of paper, they would run it through, they would send it by mail. It would take 2 days to get to Nashville. Dad would read it and send it back. Four days later, that doctor would be able to read that EKG. Then, when I was about 9 or 10 years of age--because their bedroom was right around the corner from mine--I remember so well when he installed a telephone to put another big box there to have the first in Tennessee again of a machine--and it was amazing at the time--one could transmit these EKGs electronically over the telephone wire and have it interpreted at the bedside.…”