Medical telecommunications--fundamental changes in the art and science of medicine

The availability of easy to use microcomputers and medical information retrieval systems will result in fundamental and important changes in medical practice. The acquisition of information literacy and fluency will be mandatory techniques for the future practice of medicine and should be taught at the institutional level by faculty sophisticated in the use of information retrieval systems. The resulting improvements in the practice of medicine go beyond simple cost savings to fundamentally alter the ways patients and their disorders are looked upon and handled.