ABSTRACT
A stand-alone microcomputer was installed at St. Bartholomew's Hospital to obtain
the booking (first prenatal) history. This system has many well-documented advantages
over the manual method, particularly with respect to the completeness and quality
of the history produced.1 However, a single microcomputer system is unable to deal with the load of a busy
clinic, and initially, several independent terminals were required. We now describe
the installation of a local area network to link several microcomputers with a single
database in the Antenatal Clinic at Queen Charlotte's Maternity Hospital.