As a consequence, there is a need for a broad overview of the field, recognizing that current students in medicine and health care will be the clinical professionals of the next millennium. By then, computers will be in widespread use for the support of patient care, the assessment of the quality of care, and the enhancement of decision making, management, planning, and medical research.
Medical informatics has both an applied and a theoretical dimension.
These two aspects of the discipline have expanded dramatically during the last decade, and will continue to do so in the years to come. Computer-based patient records and electronic communication will be the most visible developments in the years ahead. The field of medical informatics is too extensive to be covered by only a small number of experts. The development of the Handbook has been the work of the two editors, one from Europe and one from the United States, assisted by a managing editor. The editors took much care that the Handbook would not be merely a collection of separate chapters, but rather would offer a consistent and structured overview of the field.