Electronic Medical Records in the NYT

As someone interested in health care management, administration, and practical application of new practices and policy decisions, electronic medical records are of particular interest to me. I was excited to see an article in the NYT about EMRs, but it felt a little sensationalist to me, and raised more questions than it answered.

There are clearly problems with electronic medical records, both within and between individual platforms as well as with the security and legal issues involved with moving to digital record-keeping. This article's evidence of the flaws of EMRs are a little bit of a stretch, however. An example close to home: The system that the author sites in Contra Costa County in California that "slowed to a crawl" was based on Epic, a system that's been widely, and successfully, used in large health systems nationwide, including Kaiser. It has only been in place in Contra Costa County for 3.5 months, and the problems cited in the article likely have more to do with poor planning and support for implementation than problems with the system itself. There were reasons for Epic's rocky roll-out in CCC, including that the county was committed to "going live" before a July 1st federal grant deadline, and the rushed customization/building and training process that preceded that deadline. No surprise that there were difficulties when patients first walked through the door on July 1st.

Here is an article the same author wrote in January about that system, Epic, and its beginnings 30 years ago.

Questions this article leaves me with:
The "Impact of IT" article for Monday clearly shows the benefit of these systems. But how can we make them work better for us?
What are the most pressing practical, ethical, and legal problems as we as a nation transition to EMR?
Where will these questions be answered, who will set guidelines?
What will it take for platforms to talk to each other? Will Health Information Exchanges (HIE) be embraced by programs like Epic?