2 LEVELED DESIGN OF AN UNIFIED PEDIATRIC HEALTH-CARE ENCOUNTER

The appearance of the new computer-based information technology has in itiated the possibility of medical staff performing their everyday rou tine activities more effectively and efficiently. But to be able to us e information technology as successfully as possible, unified and inte grated medical encounters are urgently needed especially in the pediat rics field. The tendency to unify the medical encounter is relatively old and had already begun in the 'pre-computer era'. There were some, unpublished, attempts to unify the child's medical encounter during th e last years in our country. Unfortunately they were all unsuccessful for various reasons, but it is our deep belief that the common factor for their lack of success was the inappropriateness of the methodology being used and the neglect of many system theory principles especiall y soft-system ones. It is the objective of this paper to briefly intro duce MetaMet and its application in the design of UNCLE (UNified Child 's heaLth carE Encounter). MetaMet is an information system design app roach, based on two-levelled design and its aim is to overcome at leas t some problems concerned with software crisis and to enable more succ essful design of (medical) information systems.