The computerization of ambulatory pediatric practice.

With the shift in pediatrics toward emphasis on preventive care and anticipatory guidance, especially in this era of care- and cost-management, quality care is becoming increasingly synonymous with good information processing. To achieve our maximum effectiveness as clinicians as well as business persons, because pediatrics is a business, we must learn to use the tool that the rest of the business world has long ago discovered and implemented: computerization. Most important, we must apply this technology not only to the business of medicine, but to the practice of medicine itself, for that is where our future and the future of our children lie. From the perspective of someone who has been there, I will discuss what computerized information access and information processing has allowed us to accomplish in practice, and I will give a glimpse of what medicine will be like when we all can manipulate medical information so rapidly that it enables us to practice true preventive care aggressively, to give anticipatory guidance and parent education in a timely manner, and to assess and monitor the progress of our children effectively.