Since the publication of Hospital Computer Systems, edited by Morris F. Collen in 1974, many reviews have appeared presenting sound analyses and evaluations of the of hospital information systems (HIS). Many of latest developments and design them were published within the IMIA Working Group 10 which is devoted to HIS but still an updated and critical overview was lacking which reviews what has been achieved since then and which also takes a inspired glance into the future. As the quotation from Romain Rolland introducing this latest work by Rudi van de Velde states "/ love and admire the past but I would like the future to be even better. " Hence, it is noteworthy to point out that this book includes topics ranging from "Trends in Medical Informatics, Setting the Scene" to "HIS in the Years Ahead" and dealing separately with hospital management concerns and medical applications. Hospital management is the field wholly supported by the HIS, since it deals with transactions issued by the team of patient care professionals about the patients and, as such, handles computer communications between the more or less autonomous substructures of the hospital, including central and costly resources such as laboratories, radiology departments and pharmacies, and links medical and administrative services (as Marion J. Ball already pointed out when she undertook to categorize the HIS).
