Abstract
Flinders Medical Centre (FMC) in South Australia has a storage problem. The space available for filing existing medical records is full, while the demand for additional storage continues its linear growth. The hospital plans to use this “crisis” as an opportunity to review the entire basis for the management of the medical record and pilot an optical disk system as a precursor to paperless medical records. There are many constraints to this objective, but many advantages if the scheme proves successful. Michael describes the events which precipitated this project and outlines the steps in FMC's planned progression to a paperless record. (AMRJ, 1989, 19(4), 149–154).