Hospital information systems--past, present, future.

This article about the state of the art of hospital information systems and about future directions was written in 1984 by the late Peter Reichertz. It now serves as a companion paper to a paper with the same title, written by Reinhold Haux 20 years later (this issue). In that paper Reinhold Haux starts where Peter Reichertz ended. The original text of Peter Reichertz has been retyped and the figures redrawn. Possible errors may have resulted from this process.