Book excerpt: Aimed at health care professionals, this book looks beyond traditional information systems and shows how hospitals and other health care providers can attain a competitive edge. Speaking practitioner to practitioner, the authors explain how they use information technology to manage their health care institutions and to support the delivery of clinical care. This second edition incorporates the far-reaching advances of the last few years, which have moved the field of health informatics from the realm of theory into that of practice. Major new themes, such as a national information infrastructure and community networks, guidelines for case management, and community education and resource centres are added, while such topics as clinical and blood banking have been thoroughly updated.