'Doctors and the Development of Hospital Computer Systems: A Case Study' (1982-1985)

The study was based on meetings and taped interviews with consultants, junior doctors and nursing staff, plus documentary evidence. The latter is not included in the records given to the Contemporary Medical Archives Centre, nor (with one exception) are the records of meetings, but the taped interviews have been deposited in full. The interviewees give pseudonyms rather than their actual names.

From November 1982 to May 1985 the Economic and Social Research Council funded a study by Dr M P Dent of Staffordshire University School of Humanities and Social Sciences entitled 'Doctors and the Development of Hospital Computer Systems: a case study'. The study was conducted at an unnamed small acute hospital in Birmingham, and assessed the impact of a computer-based medical records system on the clinical work processes within an outpatient clinic, the decision-making processes involved, and the responses of the doctors to the computer system.

The papers are available subject to the usual conditions of access to Archives and Manuscripts material, by prior appointment with the Archivist after the completion of a Reader's Undertaking. They may be consulted solely for research purposes subject to the depositor being advised of use of the materials.

These records were deposited with the Wellcome Library by by Dr M P Dent via the Economic and Social Research Council Qualitative Data Archival Resource Centre in March 1999 (Acc No 793).

Catalogued by Helen Wakely, CMAC, Wellcome Library, April 1999. Hard-copy catalogue available in Wellcome Library.

Description compiled by Helen Wakely.

Photocopies/photographs/microfilm are supplied for private research only at the Archivist's discretion. Please note that material may be unsuitable for copying on conservation grounds, and that photographs cannot be photocopied in any circumstances. Readers are restricted to 100 photocopies in twelve months. Copyright in the records is retained by the depositor initially, to be transferred to the Contemporary Medical Archives Centre three years after deposit (i.e. 24 March 2002). Researchers who wish to publish material must seek copyright permission from the copyright owner.

Held by Archives and Manuscripts, Wellcome Library: Papers of Professor T R Elliott (GC/42) on clinical record keeping in World War I. See Sources Leaflet no 10 'Hospitals' and Sources Leaflet no 24 'Audio Tapes'

Dent, M, Professions, information technology and management in hospitals (Aldershot: Avebury, c.1996).