Health information and planning systems: the need for consolidation

In a previous paper, an evaluation was made of the state-of-the-art at that time in the use of the computer in hospitals, and as with any state-of-the-art evaluation, it serves only as a static focal point along a somewhat dynamic continuum. Various problems of using the computer in hospitals (and in the wider framework of health care), as well as some of the then-current issues in hospital automation, were also discussed briefly.