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yOLUME 19, NUMBER 31
August 11, 1972.
DURHAM, NORTH CAROLINA.
New Computer Information System
Medi-Data: Short Name, But Big Job
Burroughs/Medi-Data, a computerized
hospital information and administrative
system designed to speed up the process
of patient care, is coming to Duke
Medical Center.
Dr. William G. Aniyan, vice president
for health affairs, and James A.
McCullough, vice president and group
executive of the Burroughs Corp. of
Detroit, have announced the signing of a
contract for installation of the system.
The Medi-Data system, as it is known,
is in operation at Charlotte Memorial
Hospital, an 876-bed community teaching
institution.
Duke will become the second hospital
in the country to adopt the complete
system, which is a data processing
network designed to perform clinical
paperwork and information gathering,
communicating and reporting of activities
in the areas of patient care,
administration and accounting, and
research and statistics.
Various phases of the network will be
implemented during the coming year.
The Duke team leaders for the project
include Robert G. Winfree, assistant
hospital director; Robert L. Newton,
director of patient accounts for the
medical center; and Mrs. Sandra Klima,
Mrs. Ruby Borden and Mrs. Doris Elliott,
registered nurses.
Their function will be to direct and
coordinate the total program and to
insure that all hospital departments and
personnel become actively involved in
planning for the computer system.
The system will electronically link
each patient care unit, major service
department and administrative support
area by means of video display terminals
and teletype message printers.
TV ON A TYPEWRITER—what a video display terminal resembles. The
terminal, like the one being operated here, is part of Duke's new Medi-Data System.
The video display terminals, which
resemble typewriters with an attached
television screen, will be manned by ward
secretaries on the nursing stations and by
clerical personnel in the administrative
and service department areas.
Patient care data will be entered into
the network at one video display terrtiinal
and will be automatically routed to the
appropriate video display terminal and
message printer elsewhere.
For example, if a doctor wants his
patient to have a series of blood studies
performed, he writes out the order as he
always has. The ward secretary manning
the video display terminal at the nursing
station takes the order, assigns it a code
number and types it into the video
display device. A printed copy of the
order then comes out of the message
printer at the nursing station.
A registered nurse at the station
compares this copy with the doctor's
order to verify accuracy, and the doctor's
order is then transmitted through the
electronic system and a requisition is
printed on a message printer in the
(continued on page 4)