Abstract
In 1991, the Institute of Medicine, part of America’s prestigious National Academy of Sciences in Washington, published an influential report called The Computer-Based Patient Record: An Essential Technology for Health Care. It advocated the need for computers as part and parcel of everyday medical care. Computer-based patient records, the report insisted, should be a key component of the mechanization of medicine and should form the central nervous system of healthcare, permitting doctors to deal with the complexities of modern medicine. But before medicine can consider itself part of the information age, all the facts and figures that circulate in the system have to be converted into computer-friendly “bits.”
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Notes
In 1991, the Institute of Medicine… R. S. Dick and E. B. Steen, eds., The Computer-Based Patient Record: An Essential Technology for Health Care ( Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1991 ).
The Harvard Community Health Plan… Alexandra Wyke, “Peering into 2010: A Survey of the Future of Medicine,” The Economist (19 March 1994), 1–20.
Paul Clayton, together with IBM… Wyke, “Peering into 2010”; and Paul D. Clayton and David D. Grossman, “Current Developments and Future Trends in Information Technology in Health Care,” IBM Research Report (25 June 1991 ).
The University of Massachusetts, in Amherst… University of Massachusetts, Amherst, press release (20 April 1995 ).
Equifax, America’s largest consumer… Equifax, Atlanta, GA, press release (15 March 1995 ).
In Britain, the National Health Service… “The Privacy Conundrum,” The Economist (29 April 1995), 128.
ICMIT, the transatlantic consortium… Interview with Richard Kitney, Imperial College, London (29 January 1996 ).
Unfortunately, the DICOM-3… Interview with Richard Kitney. 60 The National Library of Medicine… “Adam’s Family Values,” The Economist (5 March 1994), 110–111.
Thanks to a technology known... Interview with Richard Kitney.
Most present-day techniques of data compression… Interview with Richard Kitney.
The software, which was sponsored by Hewlett-Packard… Interview with Richard Kitney.
Firms like General Electric, the leading… “A Cure for All Ills?” The Economist (4 November 1995), 107–108.
One modest but clever little… Wyke, “Peering into 2010.”
Washington University School of Medicine… Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, MO, press release via the Internet (April 1995).
The notion of these automated diagnosticians… Edward Shortliffe, “Computer Programs to Support Clinical Decision Making,” Journal of the American Medical Association (3 July 1987), Vol. 258, No. 1, 61–66.
While in Japan, at the end of 1993… Wyke, “Peering into 2010.”
In the meantime, Professor Stephen Pauker… Interview with Stephen Pauker, Tufts University School of Medicine, Boston, MA (13 January 1994).
ICM1T has merged distinct sources… Interview with Richard Kitney.
The incidence of breast cancer is… G. Ursin, L. Bernstein, and M. C. Pike, “Breast Cancer,” Cancer Surveys (1994) 241–261.
Actually, the predicament facing doctors… “Sensitive Issue,” The Economist (12 August 1995), 78–79.
This is where Miss Finn comes in… Interview with Rebecca Finn, Imperial College, London (29 January 1996 ).
Peter Cashman is a lecturer at… Interview with Peter Cashman, Imperial College, London (29 January 1996 ).
Computer scientists from a couple… Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, press release (24 November 1993 ).
Apart from the knee joint, ICMIT… Interview with Richard Kitney.
There are hundreds of different software… Interview with Richard Kitney.
A particularly consumer-friendly product… “Why Doctors?” The Economist (10 December 1994), 117–118.
IBM is developing a “live and recorded”. IBM, as cited in Wyke, “Peering into 2010.”
As an extra touch, in the previously… Interview with Richard Kitney.
In September 1994, however, the government… Leslie A. Sandberg, “Reflections on Building a Transnational Telemedicine Demonstration Network,” Vision Comes Reality: The Journal of the National Information Infrastructure Testbed (1994), 1–7.
In 1994, Eastman Kodak and ATamp;T… William Langbein, “Medicine Meets Bandwidth,” In Vivo (April 1995), 41.
In 1995, Pacific Bell signed… Healthcare Data Information, CA, press release (28 June 1995 ).
And the University of Vermont… Julie McGowan, University of Vermont, personal communication via E-mail (23 April 1995 ).
In March 1995, the Los Alamos National Laboratory… Los Alamos National Laboratory, NM, press release (1 March 1995).
In March 1996, Health Online’s… Health Online Service, Munich, press release (12 April 1996 ).
At a conference in Harrowgate… Michael Cross, “Slipping through the Net,” Health Service Journal (30 March 1995), 17.
Another multimedia health network… “Survey of Telecommunications,” Financial Times (7 April 1996), 11.
In Japan, Toshiba has wired up a 310-bed… Toshiba, Tokyo, press release (1994).
On February 7, 1996, the… “Survey of Telecommunications.”
In April 1991, a team of pathologists… “Hospital Hopes,” The Economist (9 October 1993), 127–128.
Around 3 percent of hospital patients… R. Scott Evans, Stanley L. Pestotnik, David C. Classen, et al.,“Preventing Adverse Drug Events in Hospitalized Patients,” The Annals of Pharmacotherapy (April 1994), 523–527.
To some extent, Alvin Toffler… Alvin Toffler, The Third Wave ( London: Collins, 1980 ).
In 1995, an article in the American… American Journal of Radiology,as cited in Langbein, “Medicine Meets Bandwidth.”
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© 1997 Alexandra Wyke
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Wyke, A. (1997). Medicine Goes Digital. In: 21st-Century Miracle Medicine. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-3466-6_4
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