Hearings on the use of computer technology in the health care field are presented to provide information needed by Congress and the Food and Drug Administration to make future policies. Medical computing systems can make interpretations of data on the patient's health and can generate diagnostic recommendations to the physician. Included are testimony/articles on: a medical expert system involving diagnosis in internal medicine, called both INTERNIST-I and CADUCEUS; a computing system called HELP (Health Evaluation through Logical Processing) that rapidly provides information to support decision-making by medical personnel; marketing clinical expert systems (artificial intelligence software); the impact on costs of a computer that documents respiratory care; the security employed with clinical expert systems so that unauthorized persons cannot obtain patients' records; and the question of whether medical software should be exempt from liability or federal regulation, and specifically whether medical computing systems are subject to regulation under the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. (SW)