Informatics and geriatric psychiatry

The rapidly growing discipline of medical informatics is changing the face of clinical practice and research. The author reviews current efforts toward the development of electronic medical record systems. A successful system must provide satisfactory solutions to five major requirements: a user interface acceptable to varied health care personnel, data storage and transmission standards that will allow communication with other systems, a coding system that is flexible but accommodates complex queries, a multilevel security structure and audit trail and unique identifiers for patients and providers. These issues have not been fully resolved, and replacement of paper charts with fully computerized records is many years away, but the application of readily available computer tools to geriatric psychiatry can yield immediate benefits. The author describes a supplemental record system that provides improved organization of clinical information as well as powerful search capabilities.