Visionaries project future applications, and magazines and journals describe and discuss technologic advances. Good programmers are in short supply and can often set their own salaries. Companies are consolidating and industry-wide standards are being set. Computers, especially those designed for the huge consumer market, are becoming commodity items and sit atop almost every desk in corporate America and in many clinics. Despite all of this attention and activity, computers are not yet ubiquitous, especially in hospitals.
Prohibitive issues are largely practical ones.
Huge monitors aren't easily movable, and there never seems to be enough desk space to put a sufficient number of computers on the wards. Even in hospitals with adequate desktop computer facilities, clinicians still carry 3 x 5 index cards for their personal record-keeping needs, since no desktop solution can match the availability and accessibility of this simple system. One method attempted in the past few years was to deploy standard laptop computers, in part because they take relatively little desk space and can be transported easily. However, they are unwieldy at the bedside, unless you're good at typing with one hand. Even the more recently introduced wireless, pen-based units are too bulky and expensive for convenient use, and they're easily lost or damaged.