It’s 6:30 in the morning. I’m with a group of surprisingly awake, cheery physicians and nurses, doing grand rounds on the pediatric care ward of one of the best hospitals in the United States. I’m part of a study group for the National Academies of Science, looking at the ways by which information technology is used in healthcare. This hospital is a leader: and I see computers everywhere.

I’ve been spending a lot of time in hospitals recently. No, not as a patient, as an observer — following doctors and nurses on their grand rounds, watching patients get admitted, nurses doing shift changes, pharmacists filling prescriptions, and then watching nurses actually deliver the prescribed medication to their patients, waving barcode readers over the prescriptions, the medication, and the patients…