Where we have been, where we are going.

The 1960s saw the first introduction of the computer into hospitals. Business offices were generally the pioneers for this new technology as tasks like patient billing and accounts receivable were converted from manual posting machines to large-scale computer systems. Larger hospitals and medical centers opted for their own in-house systems, while many hospitals stepped into hospital-sharing groups.

In the 1970s, the computer found a home in other departments outside the business office. Clinical laboratories led the way with minicomputers designed to interface high-volume instruments. Today, shared and standalone systems are serving functions from the complex control of the environment to the difficult job of ordering and reporting on medications, from the complex job of reporting to government to the laborious job of million-dollar multiple inventories, from the complex control of instruments to the sophisticated scheduling of patients, physicians and resources. Today's modern hospitals are doing all this and more.

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It seems incredible that just a bit more than 30 years ago the world's first electronic digital computer was born. The ENIAC (electronic numerical integrator and computer) was a monster that weighed 30 tons and contained 18,000 vacuum tubes. Today, with the advent of the micro computer, this computer-on-a-chip could fit easily into just one of grandpa ENIAC's tubes. This microcomputer provides an awesome amount of computer power in a package that in its simplest form costs less than $10, a far distance from the millions of dollars that its predecessors cost. This second computer revolution has made microprocessor-controlled instrumentation the norm in the last few years.

It will be the editorial policy of this magazine, Computers in Hospitals, to report to the hospital management and medical professionals on the major areas of computer technology in hospitals for today and tomorrow. In the months to come, we will be searching out the inroads microprocessors, minicomputers and major computer systems are making in the complex hospital environment. In 1980, hospital management will spend over $1,000,000,000 on computer systems and computer-controlled equipment. Computers in Hospitals will be on the leading edge--reporting on this new technology.

Editor's Note: This first installment in our year-long 30th anniversary "Pioneers in Healthcare IT" celebration features the first editorial written by the first editor and publisher of Health Management Technology, originally called Computers in Hospitals.

Editor and Publisher

Bill W. Childs