Rheumatologist Beth Simpson, D.O., poses with her Samsung tablet running NextGen software in the Arthritis Associates medical records room Wednesday afternoon. Medical practices are transitioning form analog paper records to digital ones stored on computers.

In health care, there are patients and doctors; machines and medicines; office staffs and insurance companies.

And binding them all together is paper.

In a given day, thousands of sheets -- lab results, referrals, billing information -- will change hands at a facility like University Surgical Associates in Chattanooga. The facility, home to 32 surgeons, spends close to $1,200 a month on paper.

That's why, for health care providers, entering the digital age is no small feat.

The shift from paper to digital has happened more slowly in medicine than in other industries.

But a federal program established under the 2009 economic stimulus law has provided billions in incentives for hospitals and physicians to make the switch to electronic records -- and in the next two years, it will begin penalizing providers that have not.

Overall, 291,325 doctors and 3,880 hospitals have made the switch, according to a Wall Street Journal report earlier this year.

The idea of digital health records comes with many goals: Greater efficiency, improved accuracy, more patients, faster billing, prompter payments.

But doctors' offices and hospitals say the transition has not been smooth.

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Doubts plague health care industry's mandatory switch to digital records