For the past several years, experimental studies have been undertaken at the Mayo Clinic to evaluate the feasibility of utilizing electronic data processing to handle medical information, especially the medical information which makes up a medical record. We have experimented with automated techniques for collecting and storing medical-history data, specifically with techniques for computer generation and processing of health questionnaires, for computer-controlled administration of health questionnaires, and for computer-controlled entry and retrieval of medical-history data directly by physicians in ordinary English language by use of a video-screen and light-pen computer terminal.The questionnaire studies are concerned with ways of entering into computer storage medical-history data obtained from patients without physician involvement; the video-screen studies are concerned with entry into computer storage of medical-history data obtained by physicians in their interview with the patient. The paper describes our experiences in these studies.