[Possibilities for the application of electronic data processing in surgical departments (author's transl)]

The primary precondition for the application of electronic data processing (EDP) are organisational measures including adequate personnel who are needed for preparatory work. Special documentation and coding systems must be introduced for the purpose of data preparation, whereby the size of the EDP equipment (hardware) depends on the problem to be tackled. The EDP programms (software) should be designed in such a way that every doctor is able to operate the EDP equipment even with little knowledge of data processing. Equipment ranges from minicomputers and centralized computer systems to integrated information systems. Whereas today well-designed application models for minicomputers already exist, the integrated information system is still in a development stage.