Longitudinal follow up studies are crucial and these necessitate the collection of many data for this special population. Informatic support for clinical records may be a very important instrument to allow us to follow persons with developmental disabilities from childhood to adulthood. To these aims specific computer supports are utilised. In this way, we obtain a complete picture of a single person and it is also possible to compare each person with a group of patients using different codes. In our clinic, we are following with this system a group of 7000 persons.
Informatic support is necessary to monitor so large a follow up study.
In a general environment where physicians work in team is very important to have a real time information sharing. Originally based on the IBM LAN manager the network has been recently updated to the Novel Netware software. In this way there is no need to let paper circulate inside the department. Many functions are available for the professionals. The possibility to define the workload of the department in terms of consultancies, clinical examinations, etc.