Hi, Warner! I hope you are better soon! Note that you are a burden on the health system and it would be socially responsible for you to get well very soon. Also, we want to make sure there is no Slack in the system! It's already pretty loose already. Some have said the 'system' is like a helicopter, a bunch of spare parts flying in formation! Get outa there!

Dr. Slack, get well soon. I will never forget your precious gift of your signed book, Cybermedicine and how generous and welcoming you were. I will always refer what you keep teaching us 'patients are the least utilized resource in healthcare'. Please get better soon ... All the way from sunny Kuwait!!

Dear Warner: Sick is one thing but 'hospital sick' is yet another as I discovered last year. Very sorry to hear this news and I wish you a speedy and full recovery. Cordially, Don

Dear Warner, There is no word to express my gratitude to consider myself a colleague and a friend of yours. You are one of the few people who have played a big role in my life when I first moved to US, and one of the fewer whose wisdom I still rely upon to guide me till this day. I still remember the days upon starting my career at DCI. I was sharing with Brad the office that was located a few inches away from yours. You never missed the occasion to step by the door and greet us... Literally any occasion, no matter the circumstances, being it a rainy day or a snowy one (and we had couple of those over the years; perhaps one of the reasons why I left Boston...) I also want you to know that I still deeply cherish the precious moments we spent conversing about everything and nothing, from medicine, history and french literature to Tunisian politics, the economy and health informatics. Your vision about healthcare, your humility towards knowledge, and your unique perception on progress as a mean to simply become a human being has deeply impacted me and is permanently guiding my career and life. I wish you dear friend a prompt recovery... we love you! Regards, Melek

Warner, sorry to hear that you're ill. You have always been one of my great heroes for your early and sustained work on 'patient power'. I wish you the best, and a speedy recovery and return to active research and enjoyment.

Warner—very sorry to hear you are ill! You are one of my heroes, especially around your work re getting patients more engaged. Hoping you are better soon—David Bated

Warner, When AHRQ called many experts in informatics together to discuss standards, 1998 I believe, your name was one of the first that we HAD to invite. It was my pleasure to meet you and hear your advice. You and your work continue to be held in the highest esteem. Wishing you the best of health outcomes. Mike

Warner, All my best wishes for a speedy recovery. You are a true pioneer in our field. Ed

Dear Warner and Carolyn: Don and I have recently spent a month in Sarasota Memorial Hospital and sincerely hope you are receiving the same excellent medical care. I recall fondly our first meeting in Aspen when I heard your presentation on The Automated Patient History. Your warmth and kindness dealing with patients has flavored our friendship over the years. I was ready to apply for a volunteer job to help with your innovative projects and treasure our recent visit in Boston. Loving prayers are with you and Carolyn. Mary

Hi Warner, I was so glad to sit next to you during an AMIA conference and to hear your insights about empowering patients. I hope you get better soon! Best wishes, Chunhua

Dear Warner, Warmest wishes for a speedy recovery. Still refer to your book, that you autographed. Teng Liaw

Warner, Best wishes for a speedy recovery. Howard

Dear Warner: No words can describe your generosity to guide and mentor students interested in informatics. Your dedication to helping others appreciate patients’ empowerment with true technology is a guiding light for all of us who dedicate our lives to Medical Informatics. Please get well and continue guiding us. FNR

Hi Warner Fond memories of LINC days years ago. Best wishes and my hope for a quick recovery. Jerry

You are DA MAN! I've quoted you in speeches hundreds of times around the world, so please know that your wisdom is known far beyond the reach of your personal presence. You are often cited in discussions in the Society for Participatory Medicine, including its blog, e-patients.net. My personal favorite is History lesson! “LINC with Tomorrow”: Warner Slack on “educational TV,” 1967 See you soon!

Warner is one of my heroes, a pioneer in informatics in its earliest years. Moreover, he's a gentle, wonderful human being that I feel fortunate to come to know a bit in the past several years.

Warner, Best wishes from Salt Lake City. I still remember the days when we were very active in taking new and challenging Clinical Informatics tasks. You, Howard Bleich and Octo Barnett at Harvard were the 'thought leaders' and kept people like Homer Warner, Al Pryor, Paul Clayton and I on the right track. Hope you are getting along well and that soon we will hear that you are at home doing well. Best personal wish, Reed

Dear Warner, Godspeed. You have been a great inspiration to me and countless others at various points in their careers. What I have learned from being around you for relatively brief moments speaks volumes about what a leader you are in your field. Thank you for your wisdom, collegiality and support. Sincerely, Humoud

Warner, You have been a leader of and inspiration to the biomedical informatics community for more than half a century. You have, at every moment, acted as a gentleman and a scholar. Wishing you a speedy return to health, and I hope your doctors have had the good sense to install a LINC nearby to help follow your progress. Fondly, Ken

Warner, you are one of the towering figures in biomedical informatics. I hope that this tower remains erect. I wish you well. Jos

Dear Warner, I am very sorry to learn that you have been hospitalized. It causes me a little sadness that you are going through this. Please stay strong and have a speedy recovery. I am sure you will be out of the hospital very soon and be with us again. Cheer up, take care and take rest. Please let me know if there is anything I can do. Best wishes, Qiang

Warner, You have always been so friendly, kind, and quick to offer help. I especially remember when you introduced yourself on my first day at DCI, how welcoming, personable and humble you were despite the stature and reputation that preceded you. These past two years, I've been in awe of the number of students and visitors who you have taken the time to meet with and mentor. You have surely shared a great deal of wisdom and experience to the next generations, and your guiding principles taken to heart by all those who have had the honor to hear you speak or read your words. Thank you for all the kindness, thoughtful words and ideas. Sincerely, Darren Fahy

Warner, Sorry to hear about your illness. It has truly been an honor to work with you and what a wonderful way to start my career in informatics is to learn from the man who helped start it all. I’m grateful for your help and advice during my training and am humbled to have my name alongside yours on the paper we just published. Get well soon.

Dear Warner; So sorry to hear you are in the hospital and 'on the other side of the fence.' Thanks to your cutting edge work over the years, you can hopefully reap the benefit of the electronic medical record system you created to aid in your recovery. I have admired you throughout my entire career at BIDMC and hope to see you in good health soon. My best wishes for a speedy recovery, Lew

Warner, You have been an inspiration to many, me included. I have so much enjoyed our Thursday lunch discussions over the years and look forward to some more of them. So please get better! Bob Brown

Dear Warner: Sending positive thoughts to one of the kindest people I've interacted with during my time serving at AMIA. -Jeff

Dear Warner, I am very sorry to hear about your illness. I have the best memories of my time as a fellow at the Division of Clinical Informatics, always receiving great advice and feedback from you. I will never forget your help with my PhD research and my immigration process. I hope you get better before I finish writing this message! Federico

Hello Warner -- So sorry to hear that you aren't feeling well. I'm sure your colleagues are missing you greatly. Your leadership in patient empowerment has been such an inspiration to me over the years. I hope you are feeling better soon. Rita Zielstorff

With deepest gratitude for your pioneering research and advancements in medical informatics, sending you our best wishes for your recovery from your colleagues over at Tufts Medical Center.

Dear Warner, Nobody can bring a Slack down. I've sent a bunch of messages to your home over the last few weeks. Jan and I are waiting to see you again. You and I will take a ride in the big blue truck. How about a little Omar Khayyam? Come fill the cup and in the fire of Spring, the winter garment of repentance fling : Time flies and the bird is on the wing. We'll all be getting together soon.

Anybody who has ever met Warner knows his heart. He is the most genuine, unpretentious and kind-hearted person I have ever met. Seeing him and listening to him has always been so inspiring and motivating to me. His deep sense of gratitude for the smallest of things and the warmest greetings no matter how many times you meet him during the day is admirable. I will never forget how he would always bring my cup of tea to my desk, which I would invariably forget in the kitchen and say, “Ruchira, I am sure this is yours. I wanted to personally give it to you before it got too cold.” Who does that, really? Warner, I am very fortunate to have worked with you and to have known you. I have always taken pride in introducing DCI to a new person with your name and credentials – saying that I work with Dr. Warner Slack who is one of the pioneers in the field of Clinical Informatics – thank you, Warner for making this field known to the masses. I respect you, Warner, from the bottom of my heart and am thinking of you each day and praying for your speedy recovery. Warmest regards, Ruchira

Dear Warner, Thank you for being the genius who first uncovered the power of how patients relate to computers. The ripples of your pioneering work are still part of the leading edge of patient-centered innovation. You are a scholar of Human Nature and a scholar of Clinical Informatics. What a gift for us all. My best, Nancy

Hi Dr. Slack, I only saw you speak once, at a HIMSS meeting and was fascinated by your background. Wishing you well, Suzanne

My wife Sue and I have been your patients often over the years! Result: the best treatment in the world of medicine. I trust Clinical Infomatics will live forever.

21 years ago, I was a young military doc running the hills in Israel, fascinated with how 'computers', as they were known at the time, could change healthcare. I took a 3-day leave from my unit, flew over to Boston (by invitation of Charlie S) and walked into Warner's office (sweaty palms and all) wondering if I was the only crazy one. Warner looks at me, laughs, gave me a bear hug and opened the door to what later became my entire professional life in healthcare technology and entrepreneurship. Warner, you changed people's lives, and healthcare in the midst, and we are all forever grateful. So sorry to hear you are ill and wish you the quickest recovery. Roy.

Dear Warner, I echo what everyone has said about the importance of the work of the DCI (and its predecessors), led by you and Howard. What you built in the 1970s and 1980s was far ahead of any other hospital information system—and, to my mind, is far ahead of many of the most commercially successful systems of the current day. What is most important is not the technological tour de force. What is most important is how much the system improved the lives of both patients and doctors. What you’ve done is amazing enough. More amazing is the person you are: intense, passionate and tireless in advocating what is best for others, and always putting that before any personal agenda. So many times I’ve wanted to bottle some of that, and drink it! Get well, my friend.

Dear Warner, I'm so sorry you're ill! I remember so many conversations fondly---from the Hawthorne effect, to artificial intelligence (and real stupidity), to the sizes of things and John Tyler Bonner---and look forward to more. Get well soon!

Dear Warner As a young doctor who had embarked on an informatics doctorate in the 1980's, your work was for me a rare beacon in what often felt like an otherwise solitary and futile mission. It is only because we could stand on your shoulders, that many of us got started and together helped to create the digital world we find ourselves in today. Thank you for being there at the beginning, and being so clear in your thinking and steadfast in your committment.

Dear Warner, I'm so sorry to hear that you're in the hospital. I would guess that many wouldn't know that the scope of your influence includes the sickest and smallest of BIH/BIDMC patients: NICU babies. Your promotion and tools to provide family education and support have had a foundational effect on our program. I hope that you are feeling well soon.

Dear Warner: Like others, I honor your brilliant contributions in the domain of work. But it is your genuine goodness that I admire much more. I first felt that in 1982, when i was moving to Boston with the thought (unfortunately, never fully realized) that I might work with you and Howard. We hadn't yet rented an apartment, and were trying to figure out where to ship our books. Without hesitation you said 'send them to me', and didn't bat an eyelash when 71 boxes arrived and cluttered your office for weeks. You have remained a most wonderful friend to me ever since, and a truly admirable person . Love, David

Dear Warner, I am so sorry to hear that you are ill and in the hospital. I have so many memories of 'growing up' during our CCC days. My first time meeting you, of course, was the day you came and lectured to my Computer Science class at Brandeis in 1976, telling us all about Converse and demonstrating the UTI interview. Little did I know then that a couple of years later Harris Yett would put me in touch with Howard, and despite the fact that I failed the MIIS test you guys would hire me anyway! You taught me so much about how to work with clinicians and administrators, all of which served me well during my 35 years at BIDMC. You are one of the kindest men I have ever had the privilege of knowing. Though we didn't always see eye to eye, we were able to agree to disagree with mutual respect, which meant a lot to me. I am sending healing thoughts and big virtual hugs your way (not as big as the wonderful bear hugs you always give, of course, my arms just aren't big enough!). Love, Caryn

Warner, Joanne and I send you and Caroline tons of love from Finland. We met 40 years ago and you both have always been there for us. May you be home and recovering soon. Love, Steve and Joanne

Warner, sorry to hear you're in the hospital! You are one the original 'Cybermedicine' leaders, serving as inspiration to all and giving us guidance as our field was born. I still treasure my signed copy of the book! Best wishes always, Dan

Warner, Your optimism infused the CCC crew from the original datacenter in the Lawry Building, diesel fuel and all, to the present. Hope you are getting the best support and recover soon. Marilyn

So sorry to hear that you are in the hospital. Your continued devotion to patients, medicine and informatics are an inspiration to all of us. Here is to a speedy recovery.

Dear Warner, I hope your 'secret shopper' visit to the hospital is short and helps you to continue your outstanding work of informatics improving the care of patients. Best wishes. Nancy

Dear Warner, I was so sorry to hear that you are ill and in the hospital. I hope for the best possible outcome. Your focus on the patient has been an inspiration to many. I cannot count the number of times I have referred people to your early work on patients' providing personal information via computer -- when yet another individual asked the (already answered!) question, will patients be willing to interact with computers? We may have finally arrived at a point when this question no longer arises -- a good thing since there are so many other unanswered questions to pursue. Very best wishes to you and your family. Betsy Humphreys

Sending all best wishes and hopes to an incredible doctor, teacher, scientist, innovator, inventor, river rafter and friend. Love, Bob and Stella

Hi Warner, I am sorry to learn that you are ill. My memories of our lunches and discussions together are a treasure. Your contributions to the BI are a great legacy. You brought the first African-american housestaff to the BI. and you were the first to tell me about this guy named Obama. I certainly hope you recover soon. My best wishes Best regards, Clyde

Warner - Thank you for your lifetime of leadership in shaping the informatics profession and making computing in healthcare a reality. I don't doubt that -- even now -- the experiences you are having as a patient are shaping your thinking about ways to refine the patient and provider experience and optimize care. But I hope you instead focus your thoughts and energies on your own speedy recovery!