Medical informatics in postgraduate training: a way to improve office-based practitioner information management.

Medical informatics has the potential to revolutionize patient care by providing every physician with rapid, easy access to the entire medical knowledge base. However, many changes are needed in the way systems are designed and physicians are trained before this potential can be realized. It is the shared responsibility of the medical informatics community, professional societies, academic organizations, and practitioners to accept the challenge of turning the power and promise of modern computer technology into useful tools for the care of patients.