| Healthcare information technology has advanced | | | | web-based systems. |
| very quickly in the past decade. The question will | | | | Some web-based systems have all of the |
| usually not be whether a practice will adopt an | | | | software and data hosted and managed at a |
| electronic medical records software system, but | | | | central data center maintained by the software |
| whether that system will be housed on their | | | | vendor. The medical practice simply uses the |
| servers or be web-based. While some physicians | | | | system through their web browser and a |
| might be skeptical of a third-party's ability to | | | | broadband internet connection. Other web-based |
| safeguard patient data in a web-based system, | | | | systems allow users to access the system |
| many early challenges have been overcome and | | | | through a web browser, but the server that |
| more practices are choosing to offload the burden | | | | hosts the system is housed and maintained by |
| of server maintenance and data backup to | | | | the medical practice. |