Since the publication of Hospital Computer Systems, edited by Morris F. Collen in 1974, many reviews have appeared presenting sound analyses and evaluations of the of hospital information systems (HIS). Many of latest developments and design them were published within the IMIA Working Group 10 which is devoted to HIS but still an updated and critical overview was lacking which reviews what has been achieved since then and which also takes a inspired glance into the future. As the quotation from Romain Rolland introducing this latest work by Rudi van de Velde states "/ love and admire the past but I would like the future to be even better. " Hence, it is noteworthy to point out that this book includes topics ranging from "Trends in Medical Informatics, Setting the Scene" to "HIS in the Years Ahead" and dealing separately with hospital management concerns and medical applications. Hospital management is the field wholly supported by the HIS, since it deals with transactions issued by the team of patient care professionals about the patients and, as such, handles computer communications between the more or less autonomous substructures of the hospital, including central and costly resources such as laboratories, radiology departments and pharmacies, and links medical and administrative services (as Marion J. Ball already pointed out when she undertook to categorize the HIS).

1 Trends in Medical Informatics Setting the Scene

1 The Current Healthcare System: In a State of Transtition
2 Health Care Actors: Objectives and Requirements
3 The Genesis of Hospital Information Systems: A Look at the Past and the Future
4 Computer System Fundamentals
5 Standardization in Medical Informatics
6 Most Important Trends in the 1990s
7 Modelling Health Care Systems
8 The Make or Buy Decision
9 Computer Safety in Health Care Systems
2: Hospital Management Systems
10 Architecture of a Hospital Information System
11 The Patient Management Systems
12 Order Entry and Result Reporting Management Systems
13 Patient Appointment and Scheduling
14 Operating Theatre Management Information System
15 Automation in Nutrition
16 Laboratory Information Systems
17 Radiology Information Systems
18 Oncology Information Systems
19 Pharmacy Information Systems
20 Nursing Information Systems
21 Hospitals Financing: Challenges of the 1990s
3: Medical Computing Applications
22 Medical Data: Acquisition, Manipulation and Analysis
23 Automatization in Cardiology
24 Automatization in Pneumology
25 Patient Monitoring Systems
26 Computer Stored Medical Record Systems
27 Computer Assisted Clinical Decision Making
28 Medical Imaging
29 Imaging Management and Communication Systems in Medicine
30 The Era of Telemedicine
31 Computerized Surveillance System for Nosocomial Infections
4 Hospital Information Systems in the Years Ahead
32 Hospital Information Systems: The Future is Now!
Acronyms
References.