Abstract :
From its earliest beginnings, health care automation has been directed toward hospitals and allied institutions. Yet, it is in the office environment of the individual or small group practice, virtually unchanged for a hundred years, that most doctor-patient encounters occur. When physicians and the computer world learn to communicate productively, automation´s enormous potential for augmenting and improving patient care will finally be appreciated by the practitioner, present rejection will become future embrace, and an explosive growth in health care automation will ensue. To hasten this long overdue change, this paper suggests the development of a cohort of practitioner-informaticians, and closes with a challenge to the universities, manufacturers and professional organizations to join together to create a cooperative consortium to support and promote medical automation, putting heavy emphasis on the practitioner´s office environment as the essential substrate.
