ABSTRACT
On the face of it, there should be many fruitful applications of information and communications technologies (ICTs) in healthcare. Healthcare is an information-intensive activity, which depends crucially on communication between professionals and patients, and health services are characterised by rapid uptake of a wide range of new technologies. Yet ICTs have made relatively little impression in healthcare in the United Kingdom National Health Service (NHS) to date (Keen 1994) and a number of major ICT initiatives have experienced serious problems (Committee of Public Accounts 1993; National Audit Office 1996). Experience in other countries suggests that experience in the UK is mirrored elsewhere (US Congress OTA 1995). Now, though, the arrival of the Internet and other large-scale networks brings new predictions that the benefits of ICTs in healthcare will-finally-be realised.
