Linking personal computers to a hospital laboratory computer.

In the Department of Pathology, Norwood Hospital, a number of individual microcomputers in the home and throughout the laboratory have been connected to a central hospital laboratory computer. The microcomputers are connected to the central computer over standard telephone lines via the autoanswer modem for any telephone. Here, the author describes the system and its benefits, and explains why this type of application is a major potential use of computers in medicine in the future.