[Perspectives in the use of computers in anesthesia]

The remarkable development of computer technology and the early experiments into its clinical use give us cause ot define useful spheres of application and task areas in anaesthesia for this valuable machine. Parallel to this followed the development of computer use in anaesthesia. Here, there are essentially four main areas of application: administration of data, monitoring, teaching, process of decision making. Next to a quite uniform definition of the task areas of a computer, the question of the selection of the suitable computer for the respective requirement cannot be answered in the same uniform way. For the application of computer technology in the practice of anesthesiology it is essential to guarantee not only sufficient safety of data but also a protection from misuse and manipulation. On the whole it is probable that computer technology will take over more and more medical technical tasks especially of the anaesthesia apparatus and evaluate them. An automatic registration of records with combined off-line and on-line recording of measured values represents the logical development of this technology.