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QUINCY, ILL. -- A big first for St. Vincent's Nursing Home, they've switched to completely electronic medical records.

It's the first nursing home in the region to go paperless.

Each drug cart and treatment cart at St. Vincent's is now equipped with a lap top. The electronic system allows physicians and other health care systems to share information, such as patients' medications and progress reports. All of that information is now at the nurse's fingertips.

"The benefit is to our staff and our residents because the staff have less paperwork to mess with. All the information is on the computer and is easily accessible," said Chief Operating Officer David Reis.

"They don't have to run and look at a chart, look in a notebook, go find a nurse and say, 'what kind of diet is this person on.' It's all right there on the laptops. Saves a lot of time and allows us better care," said Administrator Paula Connell.

The nurses' assistants have PDA's where they can do their charting without having to go back to a main computer. The extra time will go to the patients.

"The more we know about the resident themselves, the easier it is to relay information to the doctor and be able to communicate with the families a lot better, too," said Director of Nursing Pamela Demoss.

Doctors also can access patient information from work or home.

"We have the ability to interface with the physicians with other health care systems that we can all share information and eliminate repetition," said Connell.

And while it's a good change, it did take some getting used to.

"I've been doing this for 28 years, so papers have been my friend for a long time. So, it was kind of hard to get used to but I like it a lot better. It's faster, of course we're saving a lot of trees, so it's better all the way around," said Demoss.

The federal government passed a law in 2009 that requires all hospitals and nursing homes to be paperless by 2013.