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A visit to the ER may not seem different at first glance, but there are big changes.

Long gone are the days of filing cabinets filled with patient medical charts.  Instead, all of the information is filed on computers.

"Basically it's the right thing to do.  Health care is much more delivered in electronic means than paper means.  Paper was the way health care had to be delivered for a long time.  Now there are better, more sophisticated electronic tools available and we wanted to bring those to our patient population here," said the Chief Information Officer of Marquette General Hospital, David Graser.

So far the results have been positive.  Not only will costs be reduced by saving paper, but there will be more effective communication between physicians.

"As an emergency physician, we don't have the benefit of a long-term relationship with a patient.  Oftentimes patients present here sometimes in their worst medical situations and it offers ready access to critical information, whether it be from an outside facility where they were initially seen or whether that information was provided here in the emergency department," says Dr. Scott Hagle, Emergency Medicine physician.

As far as computer crashes go, patients have no need to worry.

"It really does rely on having the right information; having electronic means makes it easier, but that doesn't mean that you have to not have other means available as well.  So there'll be complete redundant systems and contingency backup systems for all vital health care information," Graser says.

The new technology is up and running in the emergency department.  In the future, the goal is to have it operating throughout the entire hospital.