Electronic medical records will be bettering the safety and protection, quality and efficiency of health care in the villages, as revealed by the hospital and clinic administrators.

However, the records that already existing in several hospitals in the larger cities makes up for a huge spending for minor facilities, according to most of which they struggle financially. Many of them still don't even have the records.

A few rural administrators are concerned that they won't be able to meet the needs for the government payments beginning in 2011 to aid in the offset of the cost. Facilities not having the records entirely in place in the next 4 years will be punished by lower payments from Medicare and Medicaid.

In Mauston, approximately 75 miles northwest of Madison, Mile Bluff Clinic would be incurring expenditures over $2 million for implementing the records, as reported by the administrator Carol Fronk.

The clinic had received a broadband capacity last August for aiding the records. However, the links to the satellite clinics situated in Elroy, Lake Delton and Necedah do not have broadband, which poses an obstacle in many small towns.