Relevance of the electronic computer to hospital medical records

Abstract

During the past 30 years an “information explosion” has completely changed patterns of illness. Unit files of individual patients have become so large that they are increasingly difficult both to store physically and to assimilate mentally. We have reached a communications barriers which poses a major threat to the efficient practice of clinical medicine.

At the same time a new kind of machine, the electronic digital computer, which was invented only 26 years ago, has already come to dominate large areas of military, scientific, commercial, and industrial activity. Its supremacy rests on its ability to perform any data procedure automatically and incredibly quickly.

Computers are being employed in clinical medicine in hospitals for various purposes. They can act as arithmetic calculators, they can process and analyse output from recording devices, and they can make possible the automation of various machine systems.

However, in the field of case records their role is much less well defined, for here the organization of data as a preliminary to computer input is the real stumbling-block. Data banks of retrospective selected clinical information have been in operation in some centres for a number of years. Attempts are now being made to design computerized “total information systems” to replace conventional paper records, and the possibility of automated diagnosis is being seriously discussed.

In my view, however, the medical profession is in danger of being dazzled by optimistic claims about the usefulness of computers in case record processing. The solution to the present problems of record storage and handling is very simple, and does not involve computerization.