Introduction of a computer-based oncology patient-care system in a teaching hospital

This report describes a computer-based patient-care system for oncology that provides physicians, nurses, medical students and associated health-care personnel with the means to retrieve data and reports that will enhance greatly their capacity to make informed decisions regarding patient management; at the same time such a system provides adequate safeguards for the confidentiality of information. The system provides information from all clinical laboratories, nursing staff observations, and pharmacy, radiology, pathology and outpatients departments. In addition, the system generates treatment plans that relate directly to day-to-day patient management, covering all aspects of patient care. More extensive research data, demographic data and reports are available from the computer's large database. This computer system is called the Oncology Research Centre Information System (ORCIS). The development of ORCIS has been a major initiative of the NSW State Cancer Council, which is encouraging teaching hospitals in New South Wales to consider this system. The aim of this initiative is to try to prevent the development of many different computer systems in New South Wales, which would cause further confusion in the management of medical information.