Oh, but it has. Outside the US, a number of countries have used computers very effectively in health care. In Taiwan, my medical records are linked to my national ID number and follow me wherever I seek care. Furthermore, doctors can regularly do pull up my chart from a laptop when I meet them in their office. It's also easy to make appointments online, and they go straight to the doctor in question, without any need to go through human administrators at the hospital. It's been a huge time saver for the patients, and the doctors achieve a turn-over that would be unheard of in N. America.

I can only speculate about the money savings, but it's overwhelmingly likely they are large. Most visits have a co-pay of about 3-10 US dollars, my one emergency room visit was about 40 and the highest tax bracket is only 20 percent. Most people are only taxed at about 7-8 percent, so it isn't simply a case of a health care system flooded with public money.

US hospitals just need good computer-based systems, or if it's a national one then a single good system.