Whether you like your policy arguments served with inspiring examples or with coolly reasoned ivory-tower research, you have to have another reason to like the idea of computerizing medical records.

With the clear, quick thinking that seemed to be absent at many levels of government during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in September, several healthcare organizations and companies came together with a brilliant idea: KatrinaHealth.org. Within weeks, the Web site made available to authorized health professionals and pharmacies the electronic prescription records of Katrina evacuees. The ad hoc group estimates that 40 percent of evacuees were taking prescription medications when they were forced to flee their home cities.

Because of this triumph of data integration, evacuees could continue receiving pharmaceutical treatments even though they might be in a different state and might never return home. Identifying which patients were affected, who should be authorized to help them, and how to make all the data available on a Web site were not trivial tasks. It was possible only because the records already were electronic (and because human beings were unusually motivated to work together, too). The system pulled data from pharmacies, government health insurance programs, private insurers, and pharmacy benefits managers in storm-affected states.

“The collaboration … has been inspiring, as public and private sector interests came together to plan, develop, and deploy a program to bring critical information to caregivers in the field,” said Russ Thomas, CEO of the drug database software firm Gold Standard. “The advancement of healthcare technology offers tremendous opportunities to speed life-saving information to the point of clinical care.”

About the same time the noble effort of KatrinaHealth.org emerged to illustrate the value of electronic medical records, the RAND Corp presented a more sweeping, theoretical call to action. In a research report, the think tank estimated that the nation’s healthcare system would save $81 billion every year if it adopted computerized medical records. The research, which RAND called the most detailed analysis ever of the benefits of EMRs, was published in the journal Health Affairs Sept 14.

RAND used computer simulation models of the healthcare system to reach its estimate. In the broadest sense, RAND said the savings would come from reducing redundant care, speeding treatment, improving safety, and maintaining greater patient health. More specifically, they found $77 billion of potential savings in EMRs by shortening hospital stays, reducing time nurses spend on administrative tasks, and improving the use of medications in hospitals and the use of medications, labs, and radiology services for outpatients. The other $4 billion comes from reduced prescription errors.

As high as $81 billion a year may sound, RAND suggests the savings could be much more, for two reasons. First, their models assume that only 90 percent of physicians and hospitals successfully adopt EMRs. Second, they aren’t accounting for the 1.5 percent annual gain in efficiency that they say the wholesale/retail industry gets from technology. If health care saw that, too, the savings would be up to $346 billion a year.

RAND readily acknowledges that huge costs are involved. Over a 15-year adoption period, the group projected that hospitals would have to spend $98 billion and physicians would have to spend $17 billion.

“These systems are expensive, but it doesn’t take long before the benefits surpass the costs,” senior RAND scientist Richard Hillestad said.

The author of this monthly column, David Orenstein, is a technology and business writer in Silicon Valley. If you have a question about a Computing Care column or to request a future topic, email him at davealli@comcast.net.