The nurse’s early role in medical informatics was that of a consumer. The
literature clearly shows the contributions of medical informatics to the practice
of nursing and patient care. Early developments in medical informatics
and their advantages to nursing have been thoroughly documented (Hannah,
1976; see also Chapter 3, this volume). These initial developments were
fragmentary and generally restricted to automating existing functions or
activities such as automated charting of nurses’ notes, automated nursing
care plans, automated patient monitoring, automated personnel time assignment,