“The revolution in clinical pathology at Yale is two-fold. On the technical side, new methods of testing and data processing developed in the clinical laboratories are resulting in services of unmatched quality in numbers sufficient to meet the needs of patients. Last year the laboratories performed 750,000 tests in clinical chemistry, clinical microscopy, microbiology, and the blood bank.
“A second and perhaps more fundamental change is the emergence of a new section of clinical pathology, or laboratory medicine, in which the laboratories and their functions have been integrated in the interests of improving teaching, research, and patient care. The section has functioned so successfully that a number of medical schools are using it as a prototype for establishing departments of clinical pathology. …
“Last year the laboratory instituted a data logging system that transfers information from the analytical instruments to a Hollerith card, simultaneously printing and punching the data to render the report both human-readable and machine-readable. Machine reading can be done by a simple card sorter or by a general purpose digital computer which Dr. Seligson hopes to acquire for the laboratories. As a prelude to the computerization of reports, he has just this year initiated a cumulative report format whereby a patient’s record can be updated each time new information is obtained by the laboratory. The physician is now able to study the data easily, in serial fashion, without having to thumb through the patient’s chart.”
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Summer 1989