Computers in medicine: automation vs. improvement of status quo

Abstract

Computers have thus far been applied in medicine most effectively in situations where a standard mechanism already exists for dealing with the data: in the accounting problems of administrative work; in sorting and printing out the results of laboratory tests; and in conventional types of mathematical calculation performed during research or other activities. Despite these obvious and desirable successes, computers have not yet had an important impact on the more inherently clinical features of medical strategy and tactics. The intellectual qualities of scientific practice in clinical medicine do not appear to have been significantly affected by the many theoretical models and grandiose systems proposed during the recent exuberance of "computers in medicine."