Howard Bleich - The Scientist - Magazine of the Life Sciences
AbstractHOWARD L. BLEICH, associate professor of medicine, Harvard Medical School Howard Bleich came to Boston's Beth Israel Hospital in 1967 to study electrolyte physiology. When he discovered that the hospital's animal farm could not accommodate dogs-the animal model needed for his study-he developed a computer program to assist physicians in the diagnosis and treatment of electrolyte- and acid-based problems. Later, he developed PaperChase, a computer program to help physicians and scientists search the National Library of Medicine's MEDLINE and other bibliographic databases of the biomedical literature. PaperChase is now widely used throughout the world. More recently, with Warner V. Slack and colleagues, Bleich has developed clinical information systems for Beth Israel and Brigham and Women's hospitals. These hospital information systems have attracted considerable attention because of the extent to which physicians, nurses, and medical students now rely on computer terminals to assist them in the care of their patients. Bleich says he reads THE SCIENTIST "to find out what is happening in the world of science. THE SCIENTIST is the newspaper of record about science. It's the L.A. Times, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, the Chicago Tribune, and the New York Times all rolled into one."