[The matter of computerized medical records in psychiatry]

To determine the choice of an adequate automatic data processing system in psychiatry, as in medicine, requires a serious set of specifications: one must take into account the aims, and distinguish between everyday applications of file processing, and other ones, more demanding, of research and statistical applications, often little compatible with each other. The financial means have to be compared with the expected benefits (output): often in psychiatry, the patient turn-over is too low to justify the purchase of an expensive hardware. The objectives of filing and classification have to break out, in order to supply the best answer (soft ware). However a computer system alone will not be sufficient to settle, anyway, the question of diagnosis in psychiatry.