The clinical laboratory is examined as a microcosm of the entire health care delivery system. The introduction of computers into the clinical laboratory raises issues that are difficult to resolve by the methods of information science or medical science applied in isolation. The melding of these two disciplines, together with the contributions of other disciplines, has created a new field of study called medical information science. The emergence of this new discipline and some specific problem-solving approaches used in its application in the clinical laboratory are examined.