Right now, the technology is available to check a drug dose as you prescribe it, to print out a personalized set of instructions for a patient, and to enter information on that patient into an electronic record. To take advantage of the technology that is already available, not to mention what is coming up, physicians need to take a wider view of what a computer can do. Through it, physicians can see and choose information that is available from nearly anywhere. The dominant role of physicians of the future may well be to find and interpret the most current information, wherever it resides. What computer networks can do One of the latest trends in the computer world is networking.
Experts call for the eventual connection of virtually all computers.
The ramifications as this concept becomes reality are amazing to consider. By some counts, as many as 20 million computers now are connected to this worldwide network of information. Until quite recently, the Internet was the exclusive province of universities and military institutions. Soon commercial interests came to appreciate the ability to reach millions of computer-literate people at virtually no cost. The Internet continues to grow at a tremendous rate.