The federal government plans to spend billions to help health care providers make the switch from paper to electronic patient records.

It’s a goal some medical experts say will be an uphill battle.

A new study in the New England Journal of Medicine shows sky-high costs are the main reason most U.S. hospitals do not have electronic health records system wide.

It's not all about the money.

“I believe there's you know a case of 'can I trust this system? Can I trust technology to actually keep all this information that we need?” Kris Witherspoon said.

Some in the industry also say the ownership of so-called 'centralized' health records raises privacy concerns.

“There's a misconception; we're not going to centralize medical records. The medical records and the x-rays will still stay where they are today. Only when the patient wants that information to go someplace, then electronically over a secure medical network or a medical internet, that will go where the patient wants it to go.” Lt. Gov. Mongiardo said.

Lieutenant Governor and doctor Daniel Mongiardo says Kentucky's E-health initiative is taking the lead in research to develop a paperless system that's proven to work.

Kentucky already has 5 million dollars invested in a medical internet for providers that could be up and running in six to eight months.

Lieutenant Governor Mongiardo says White House leaders are planning a visit to Kentucky to learn more about how the state's e-health initiative is working.