Even more fragmented than American health care is the management of health care information. Faced with a barrage of poorly organized health information, physicians and other clinicians must sift through uninspired displays to glean pearls of information necessary to make clinical decisions. Ineffective displays can lead to delays in care or inappropriate decisions. The human-computer interface can either shroud or reveal the important elements of patient information and integrate it with domain knowledge bearing on the decisions at hand. Beyond the walls of health care institutions, patients and consumers will be the recipients and users of primary health information. New tools for information gathering from patients and for information rendering to patients must be developed in order to activate patients to become fully informed and fully empowered members of their health care team.