"This will cut waste, eliminate red tape and reduce the need to repeat expensive medical tests," he said. "But it just won't save billions of dollars and thousands of jobs, it will save lives by reducing the deadly but preventable medical errors that pervade our health care system."

But the road to digitized medical records will be a tough and expensive one, reported.

Today, only about 8% of the country's 5,000 hospitals and 17% of its 800,000 physicians use electronic medical records.

There is also the issue of patient privacy. Numerous hospitals have faced security issues since moving to electronic medical records. on a security breach at a Los Angeles hospital last month.

And then there is the cost.