[Management of patient data in an intensive care unit with Macintosh and Filemaker Pro--extra effort or facilitation of routine care with improved information flow?].

A documentation system for patients in ICU is presented. The programming is based on Filemaker Pro from Claris. Two files have been created: the first "1 Eintritt" contains all the patients data like name, address, the patients history, diagnosis, therapies as the planned procedures. All these data can be imported into the second file "2 KG Unfallchirurgie" with a personal identification number. Complications, new results or further procedures can be added. Different layouts allow the user to print summaries or duty reports. The experience with 300 patients showed, that this system is easy to learn and to use, that it has a good compliance with the medical staff and that is gains a lot of time writing summaries or reports used for transferring patients to other units.