Leading Arficle Clinical computing systems: their slow introduction

The contrast between the apparent need for clinical computing systems and their slow establishment is well recognized.'-4 The ability of such systems to solve some of the problems associated with the traditional medical record is also well recognized. Yet after almost 30 years of endeavour and the development ofmany different systems the number in daily use is relatively small. This contrast was noted 20 years ago, ' When inappropriate computer languages were blamed. Other reasons advanced over the years can be divided into technical and personal/professional. Lincoln5 summarized the technical-reasons as: inefficient computer languages, computer scientists side tracked into esoteric applications, i.e. diagnos