With increasing electronic healthcare documentation, ‘paperless environment’ is commonly heard. The term is interesting and potentially misleading. Paperless implies that no paper

With increasing electronic healthcare documentation, ‘paperless environment’ is commonly heard. The term is interesting and potentially misleading. Paperless implies that no paper is used at all. However, consider what happens when a patient’s record transitions into the EHR. If admission data are captured with a computer interface and all forms are generated from the computer, how does the patient sign the admission consent? If the answer included printing the form, how does the form get back into the computer for storage?