Essay 1:1 – A General History of Healthcare Computing

Principia Medicinae Digitalis Sotoniensis
Essays on the Evolution of the UHS Clinical Data Estate 1980 -2024

David Anthony Rew MA MChir FRCS
Consultant General Surgeon and Member of the Digital Innovation Team
University Hospital Southampton and The University of Southampton

7th October 2024

Publication Plan 

The essays which comprise this series will be made available in the first instance on my professional website, https://www.wessexsurgical.co.uk as downloadable PDF documents
for review, comment and as a basis for further contributions. They will be amended, updated and supplementary as necessary and as any new material becomes available. All those colleagues with knowledge and experience of the UHS digital programme are
welcome to contribute, by communication with me through david.rew@wessexsurgical.co.uk.
Once the project is as complete as is achievable, final copies of each of the essays will be submitted to the University of Southampton ePrint server for formal publication.

Copyright
The copyright of this collection is invested in Mr David Anthony Rew as the originator of the project, editor, principal author and compiler of the collection of essays. The content of each essay is made available on a Creative Commons Version 2 CC BY basis, under which Licensees may only copy, distribute, display, perform and make derivative works and remixes based on it on the basis of Full Attribution, including formal Citation where appropriate in books and academic publications. Full acknowledgement is given to all contributors to the written work
at appropriate points in the text.

Section 1.
This section is a collection of general essays about the history of clinical computing, with
particular reference to the UHS Clinical Digital Estate.

This is the first of nine essays in this section of the collection. It describes a brief history of
the transition from paper to digitally based systems across the spectrum of healthcare management and clinical practice from the earliest concepts to the present, and it sets up the story of the Southampton Hospitals digital transformation project.

To access the full 37 page essay - download PDF.