About the authors

(From the first edition, 1995)

Dr Adrian V Stokes, OBE, is Principal Consultant at the NHS Information Management Centre (part of the Information Management Group of the NHS Executive), leading the NHS Central OSI Team, and is Visiting Professor of Information Management at Nene College, Northampton. He has been involved with computer networks and telecommunications since 1971 and was Director of Computing at St Thomas's Hospital before joining the IMC.

He is Chairman of the European Workshop for Open Systems' (EWOS) Expert Group Healthcare. He represents EWOS on the European Standards Committee Project CEN/TC 251 on Medical Informatics.

He is the author of 12 previous books and over 150 papers on various aspects of computer technology, especially communications. He has lectured professionally in many countries of the world.

He lives with a bank of computers in Mill Hill, NW London.

Dr Hugh de Glanville retired in 1979 from a career in medicine in the tropics which latterly involved editing and producing, for the African Medical & Research Foundation in Nairobi, textbooks for medical auxiliary training schools in East Africa.

He then began another career in medical editing, computing and computer typesetting (in its first days on home computers, long before 'DTP'), and publishing.

He is publisher of The British Journal of Healthcare Computing & Information Management and Health Informatics Europe.

He lives in Surrey with his wife, managing director of BJHC Limited, and a marmalade-coloured poodle.