He said that problem is that American private hospitals already are highly computerized, it's just that the computer systems are focused entirely billing and not at all on medical records management.

When they decide to get an EMRS, hospitals turn to their billing software vendor to provide them with something integrated with their billing systems. The vendors tack something on to the billing software without adequate requirements gathering amongst the actual nurses who will use it, so the result is a system that simply does not have the proper workflow for managing patient medical records.

While EMRSes like the Veterans Administration's VistA program exist and are well-liked by nurses and doctors, they provide no functionality to ensure that you get billed $20 for each tongue depressor used. That functionality is, of course, of primary importance to private hospital administrators. So effective EMR software gets passed over unless it integrates with hospitals' existing billing infrastructure, and the hospital billing system vendors build terrible EMR software.