THE FUTURE IS NO LONGER WHAT IT USED TO BE MANAGING HEALTH TELEMATICSPROJECTS

Future used to mean global progress and convergence of science and tec hnology and society. Today, we observe the decoupling of the two poles of knowledge formation and application (i.e. science and technology, and culture and society, respectively) and also fierce confrontation b etween them. The key issue to reconcile the two poles is to re-invent the link between them. The new future lies in the development of menta l and technical capacities for change and the creation of new forms of solidarity. We propose, as a general attitude, to reactivate and deve lop the four principles of efficacy-effectiveness-efficiency, hospital ity, responsibility and pertinence. Translated into driving forces for the development of health care telematic projects, they amount to the acceptance of and capacity for enterprise-wide solutions, hospitality and capacity to acquire outside knowledge, self-managed, multi-functi onal team work spirit, reengineering mentality to achieve pertinent te chnico-cultural solutions. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd.