title: The future of medical computing.
abstract: The practice of medicine is inherently dependent upon health technology. Clinicians use a wide variety of technologies in diagnosing, treating, and assessing the care of their patients. In this book, The Future of Health Technology, many different aspects of health technology are discussed in detail. Considering this breadth of coverage, it is challenging to ascertain what remains to be discussed in this chapter on "the future of medical computing". Given this considerable coverage, this chapter will open with a brief vision of the future of medical computing from three perspectives--the Patient, the Ambulatory Provider, and the Hospitalist. Discussion follows on the current and future driving forces for change in healthcare technology, and an overview of the unresolved issues that must be addressed. Necessarily, this chapter will not provide more than an overview of these topics and issues. Rather, it is the author's intent to present several visions of the future of medical computing and outline the issues, which must be overcome to achieve the vision.
authors.affiliation: Clinical & Quality Analysis, Partners Health Care System, Harvard Medical School, USA.
authors.forename: Blackford
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Middleton
mesh_terms: D000553:Ambulatory Care / Q000639:trends; D020811:Biomedical Technology; D016494:Computer Security; D003219:Confidentiality; D003695:Delivery of Health Care / Q000639:trends*; D004992:Ethics, Medical; D005544:Forecasting; D020445:Hospitalists; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet; D008490:Medical Informatics / Q000639:trends*; D016347:Medical Records Systems, Computerized / Q000639:trends; D018907:Privacy; D014481:United States