Specialised information systems: diabetes care.

This chapter describes some of the ways in which IT can be applied to the clinical management of diabetes, considering both clinical information management and decision support. At a methodological level issues addressed range from requirements analysis and specification to evaluation. From a clinical perspective the benefits that can arise and the challenges still to be faced are discussed. It is clear from practice that the dominant feature determining success is 'clinical usefulness' combined with 'safety' -the methods of evaluating clinical systems are in their infancy and need further development. Creating clinically useful and effective systems is more difficult than is commonly anticipated. The poor level of investment in this area is reflected in the relatively poor penetration of IT into clinical practice.