Hospital automation: something more than a computer

The introduction of computer techniques into the hospital environment offers an exceptional opportunity to reassess traditions and procedures developed over the years of a non-automated era. However, there is an apparent danger that computer applications evolving in many hospitals tend to perpetuate the stereo-typed roles of departments and personnel confined within traditional organizational boundaries. Their primary emphasis on conventional business or other specialized areas serves to sustain long standing and often outmoded rituals and procedures, imbuing them with the aura of modern automation. Such stereotype can be avoided by centering design of the computer system on the patient and his care as the crucial basic unit, thereby optimally meeting the needs of both patient and staff.