Clinical information systems and quality of care in the intensive care unit.

The introduction of new medical technology needs to be associated with the assessment of the value of this technology in patient care. Traditional outcome measures of quality in health care (such as survival, cost, and "quality of life") may be of little value in assessing quality of patient care at the bedside. A model of quality in bedside patient care is presented and used in the assessment of the impact of introducing a bedside information system on patient care quality.