And as Scots doctors pave the way for the rest of the country, the Common Services Agency (CSA) has pledged £8 million to help fund computerised document management systems to all 1,100 general practices.
The multi-million pound contract has been awarded to UK-market leader PCTI to supply and install DOCMAN software with training, to all Scottish practices applying for funding from their respective NHS boards.
Chris McMail of Ayrshire-based Microtech - PCTI's partners in Scotland - said that since the announcement of the contract they had already had requests from all 15 health boards who want their GPs to gear up to go paperless.
"There are currently 150 paperless practices throughout Scotland, with another 250 scheduled over the next six months," he said. "Although the technology was a bit slow to take off initially, Scotland is certainly ahead of the game now with GPs recognising the benefits to themselves and their patients."
So far 30 Ayrshire and Arran practices have had DOCMAN installed, said Paul Ardin, Director of Corporate Services for the Community Health Division of NHS Ayrshire and Arran, and hopes are high that the remaining 30 practices will follow suit by the end of the year.
"Going paperless is an important strand in our work to strengthen primary care around the GP practice, providing quality care when patients need it and where they need it - closer to home," said Ardin.
"We are delighted by the feedback we are getting from both GPs and patients."
Practices that have already moved over to computerised document management are reporting massive savings in man hours previously used to locate, file and photocopy thousands of documents every day.
And patients who can now instantly access test results and hospital appointment details at their local surgery are also noticing the benefits.
The 3,500-patient Meadowgreen Surgery at Troon was the first GP practice in Scotland to go paperless after introducing the DOCMAN system six years ago.
The surgery's Dr Grant McHattie said: "The gains for staff and patients have been numerous, not least of which is the speeding up of access to laboratory test results. But for our surgery the single biggest benefit has to be the freeing up of front desk staff.
"By moving over to DOCMAN, we have saved around 30 man hours each week, giving reception staff more time to help patients with queries about appointments and prescriptions.
A high proportion of our patients are elderly and reception staff are no longer as pressurised and have more time to listen and talk to them, creating the holistic, customer-facing approach that we feel is so important to community practice."
Installation and training takes just two-days and includes setting practices to meet the national electronic patient record (CRS) target for 2010. The system also enables surgeries to successfully audit their individual performance, so that they can take action to improve their service to patients.