The Stockholm County Medical Information System

The writing of this text arose through the opportunity of one author (D.F.) to spend a sabbatical leave studying the developments within the Stockholm County health operations. The computerization project that had started virtually 10 years previously. focussed on the Danderyd hospital. had received continuing attention in the world scene. It therefore seemed an appropriate site for study for one charged with responsibility for developing computerized hospital information systems. An intent to assemble a private report became an attempt to write a public monograph when it was discovered that the leaders of the Stockholm project had aspired for some time to put their work more cohesively in the public domain. Since any such publication would be in English and oriented to an international market. the involvement of one extraneous author representative of that market obviously had its appropriateness - in language. interest and detachment. The resulting book is unusual. if not unique. because of its lengthy and detailed description of one system - Starting from an introduction to Sweden and the local health care system. it proceeds through to detailed descriptions of user procedures. terminal displays. and computer files. Undoubtedly some readers will question the merit in having such detail. particularly as it relates to outmoded equipment and a locally developed programming language. Yet some of those same readers might well be among those many people who ask elsewhere why we should repeatedly "re-invent the wheel" in the computer industry.