Patient care is that the focus of many clinical disciplines—medicine, nursing, pharmacy, nutrition, therapies like respiratory, physical, and occupational, et al. Although the work of the varied disciplines sometimes overlaps, each has its own primary focus, emphasis, and methods of healthcare delivery. Each discipline’s work is complex in itself, and collaboration among disciplines adds another level of complexity. altogether disciplines, the standard of clinical decisions depends in part on the quality of information available to the decision-maker.

The systems that manage information for patient care are therefore a important tool. Their fitness for the work varies, and therefore the systems enhance or detract from patient care accordingly. This chapter describes information-management issues in patient care, the evolution of patient care systems in reference to these issues, and current research.