This continuing interest stems from the realisation that adequate information, coupled with the skills to use it, are necessary features for successful management and improved clinical practice which will lead to improvements in health care. It would be satisfying to record that some of the lessons from the published record of this programme had been learned and applied. Unhappily the evidence suggests the contrary.
This book assembles essays by leading contributors in the field of health computing. It includes a Prologue setting the scene and reviews tracing the history and present state of computing policy and practice in the NHS (Herbert); of the nature and effects of computer policy in the last decade (Molteno); of developments in technology and the opportunities they present for the benefit of future policy and practice (Ashford); and lastly of future options together with an examination of the mechanisms likely to be necessary to bring them to fruition (Cumming).
The various strands of these essays are brought together in an Epilogue, identifying the issues to be addressed and indicating an urgent need to re-examine computer policy and practice in the interest of establishing a more effective information base for the NHS.