Hospital information system

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A hospital information system (HIS), variously also called clinical information system (CIS) is a comprehensive, integrated information system designed to manage the administrative, financial and clinical aspects of a hospital. This encompasses paper-based information processing as well as data processing machines.

As an area of medical informatics the aim of an HIS is to achieve the best possible support of patient care and administration by electronic data processing.

It can be composed of one or few software components with specialty specific extensions as well as of a large variety of sub-systems in medical specialties (e.g. Laboratory Information System, Radiology Information System).

CISs are sometimes separated from HISs in that the former concentrate on patient- and clinical state- related data (electronic patient record) whereas the latter keeps track of administrative issues. The distinction is not always clear and there is contradictory evidence against a consistent use of both terms.