Albany Medical Center implemented the ProTouch clinical system as a prototype on a single nursing unit to determine the feasibility of integrating data from several different hospital computer systems into an integrated Patient Information Network. The prototype included results reporting, nurse and ancillary charting, and direct physician order entry. Current literature indicates that there are few institutions utilizing direct physician order entry, many rely instead on the intervention of transcriptionists or nursing staff. This paper describes our experience with order entry and offers some solutions for improving physician use of computers.