A high level summarised description of the distributed clinical information system implemented in the hospital of the free university of Brussels (AZ-VUB) is described. It evolves towards a component based clinical distributed system that consists of a set of co-operating middelware software components running on a number of computers connected by a network that will foster the integration of applications, data servers and other resources in the medical field. This system is implemented in the University Hospital of Brussels (AZ-VUB) a full-service 800-bed university hospital that provides care for 23000 inpatients, supports over 300000 outpatient visits and receives 32000 emergency patients a year.