Internet integrated in the daily medical practice within an electronic patient record

Healthcare enters the information age and professionals are finding an ever-growing role for computers in the daily practice of medicine. However, a number of problematic issues are associated with electronic publications, especially through Internet. Whilst access to any information has been improved, access to specific information has become more and more difficult [1], due to the lack of a general meta-knowledge allowing to structure Internet resources. Physicians have to learn and adapt themselves to computers and Internet, but Internet has to meet the specific requirements of Healthcare. Important issues must therefore be addressed to allow a real and daily use of Internet in the medical practice. The paper discusses most of these issues and proposes a solution developed at the University Hospital of Geneva that integrates an Electronic Patient Record with Internet, without compromises on security or on performances and that runs on standard PCs'. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.