Health reform in an age marked both by spiraling medical costs and rapidly evolving technologies unsurprisingly touts the use of sophisticated computer programs and record-keeping systems in the medical realm to cut costs and, hopefully, deliver higher quality medical care that cuts down on medical malpractice incidents and other medical errors.

That's easier said than done, with a host of recent developments -- some of them truly tragic -- indicating quite clearly that the move toward a new information age in medicine is a work in progress and not without substantial human costs.

Many in the medical field point to a recent and tragically misplaced outcome in an Illinois hospital, saying that it points squarely toward what can go wrong when humans and the technology employed to assist them are not working optimally together.

In that matter, a young baby was incorrectly administered a lethal dose of sodium chloride -- more than 60 times the prescribed dose -- by a pharmacy technician who simply typed the wrong data into a computer program that controlled an automated machine.

That incident is far from isolated. Medical researchers and authorities who generally laud the incorporation of technology in the medical arena yet point out the uneven development and progress made in minimizing computer and software glitches -- as well as human error working with new technologies -- can easily cite scores of patient injuries and deaths resulting from medical errors.

"We see problems much more often than we would like," says Dr. Rainu Kaushal, a quality control chief at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York.

"These technologies can be enormously helpful, but what is emerging is that when implemented poorly, they can be harmful," adds one of Kaushal's peers at Harvard University.

There is certainly no going back, though, and the errors will have to be worked through. The government highly favors sophisticated technology tools and solutions in the medical field, and is providing many billions of dollars to providers to update their records and systems.

Related Resource: Los Angeles Times, "Baby's death spotlights safety risks linked to computerized systems" June 27, 2011