An Automated System for Patient Record Management

(A Case study of St Francis Hospital Nsambya, Uganda)

Track: Patient Information Management

Patient record management systems in hospital today necessitate a competent

administration when handling patients, generating reports from cashier, patient details
which serves as a key factor for the flow of business transactions in St Francis Hospital
Nsambya, Uganda. Unfortunately the current Record management system leads to
misplacement of drug details, payment details, and late release of reports and
insecurity to records. This research project is aimed at computerizing all the records
about patients, staff and drug suppliers. In order to achieve this goal, a thorough
System Study and investigation was carried out and data was collected and analyzed
about the current system using document and data flow diagrams. The concept of
report production has been computerized hence, no more delay in report generation to
the hospital manager. The method used to develop the system include iterative
waterfall model approach, dataflow, logical and entity relationship diagram were used to
design the system and finally the language used were MySql, php, HTML, Css and
JavaScript.

Generally Automation plays an important role in the global economy and in daily
experience. Engineers strive to combine automated devices with mathematical and
organizational tools to create complex systems for a rapidly expanding range of
applications. The Patient Information Management System (PIMS) is an automated
system that is used to manage patient information and its administration. It is
meant to provide the Administration and Staff, with information in real-time to make
their work more interesting and less stressing.
The system development life cycle (SDLC) we chose to use the iterative
waterfall model. In this model, the system follows a series of events from the
requirement definition, system and software design, implementation and unit
testing, integration and system testing and operational maintenance. We also
used different aspects from other models like prototyping which helped us come
up with system definition and analysis, data flow diagrams (DFD) and entity
relationship diagram (ERD). The ERD was used to show the relationship between
entities while the Data Flow Diagrams were used to show the flow of data in the
system.
Iterative waterfall model divides the system development lifecycle into
phases. During each phase of the lifecycle, a set of well defined activities are carried
out for instance at the Analysis stage (structured analysis of requirement) was
specifically carried out in focus of the functionality of dataflow at St Francis
Hospital Nsambya. The system and structured analysis was then transformed into
software design (software architecture to decompose the system into modules and
representation of relationships among the modules, data structures and algorithms for
the modules to be designed.

DATABASE DESIGN.
A relational database design was used to design the database. A relational
database management system (RDBMS) is an excellent tool for organizing large
amount of data and defining the relationship between the datasets in a consistent
and understandable way. A RDBMS provides a structure which is flexible enough to
accommodate almost any kind of data. Relationships between the tables were
defined by creating special columns (keys), which contain the same set of values in
each table. The tables can be joined in different combinations to extract the needed
data. A RDBMS also offered flexibility that enabled redesign and regeneration of
reports from the database without need to re-enter the data. Data dictionaries were
used to provide definitions of the data used; these included the final data structures
for the various tables and their corresponding data fields, description and sizes. The
user application programs and interface were developed using PHP, CSS, HTML,
and Java Script with support of structured query language (SQL) and MYSQL.
SQL is a language used to create, manipulate, examine and manage
relational databases. SQL was standardized in 1992 so that a program could
communicate with most database systems without having to change the SQL
commands. Unfortunately one must connect to the database before sending SQL
commands and each database vendor has a different interface as well as different
extensions of SQL. Though SQL is well suited for manipulating database, it is
unsuitable as a general application language and programmers use it primarily as
a means of communicating with databases, another language is needed to feed SQL
statements to a database and process results for visual display or report generation.
The advantage of PHP and HTML is that you can run their programs on any enabled
platform without even recompiling the program.

SYSTEM IMPLEMENTATION
This describes the tools used to implement the graphical user interface
and the database. MySQL was used to create and connect relational tables to
the database. HTML was used to develop the GUI. PHP was used to process
queries and request flash to integrate sounds and interfaces was done to develop
the model that meets all the requirements of this system.

SYSTEMS TESTING AND VALIDATION

Testing was done after the system was put in place. This was done in two ways:
Implementation and Unit testing was carried out on individual modules of
the system to ensure that they are fully functional units. We did this by
examining each unit which we checked to ensure that it functions as required and that it
adds clients data and other details and also ensured that this data is sent to the
database. The success of each individual unit
gave us the go ahead to carryout integration testing. All identified errors were dealt
with.
We carried out integration and system testing after different modules had been
put together to make a complete system. Integration was aimed at ensuring that
modules are compatible and they can be integrated to form a complete working system.
For example we tested to ensure that when a user is logged in, he/she is linked to the
appropriate page, and could at the same time access the database.
As one of the final specific objectives of this study, validation of the
system was very important. Validation of the system was done by comparing it to
the questions asked by the users at St.Francis hospital. Most of their answers matched
what the system can do.

DEVELOPMENT OF THE SYSTEM

This section describes what is evolves to come up with the system and
how the system works.
Front end: Html (hyper text makeup language) enable the construction of
easy and intuitive user interface for accessing the database and any browser can
display and html document.
Middle end: php enables links of the text entered in the created graphic
user interface to be sent to the database
Back end: Mysql its easy to use, inexpensive database language it can run on
a variety of operating system such as window,linux,unix.os/2 and others , its
secured with technical
support widely available on the internet but most of all it support large database.

SYSTEM VALIDATION
As one of the specific objectives of this study, validation of the system
was very important. Validation of the system was done by comparing it to the questions
asked by the users at St Francis Hospital Nsambya. Most of their answers
matched with what the system can do. JavaScript was used to validate user

input and the respective input. For example the system does not accept blank field;
the system also discriminate between numerical and numerical characters.

CONVERTING ITERATIVE WATERFALL MODEL TO SPIRAL MODEL

1.

IDENTIFICATION

SYSTEM REQUIREMENT
This section describes the hardware components and software requirements
needed for effective and efficient running of the system;
Hardware Requirement
requirement
Processor
Memory
Disk space

Hardware

Minimum

System

2.4 GHZ processor speed

128 MB RAM (256 MB Recommended)
80 GB (including 20 GB for database
Management system)

Display

800 x 600 colors (1024 x 768 High

color- 16 bit Recommended)

Above shows hardware components of the machine that allows the system
to function as required for using PIMS;
Software

Minimum System requirement

Operating System

Windows 2000 or later

Database Management System

MYSQL

Run-time Environment

Apache/tomcat5 server

Above shows software requirements recommended to enable the system to

run as required for using PIMS

2.

DESIGN

After interpretation of the data, tables were drawn and process of data
determined to guide the researcher of the implementation stage of the project.
The tools, which were employed during this methodology stage, were mainly
tables, Data Flow Diagrams (DFDs) and Entity Relationship Diagrams (ERDs). The
design ensures that only allows authorized users to access the systems information.

ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN
This gives a high level view of the new system with the main components of the
system and the services they provide and how they communicate. The system is
implemented using a three-tier architecture that comprises of user interface, process
management and DBMS as illustrated below.

3.

CONSTRUCT OR BUILD

As one of the specific objectives of this study, validation of the system

was very important. Validation of the system was done by comparing it to the questions
asked by the users at St Francis Hospital Nsambya. Most of their answers
matched with what the system can do. JavaScript was used to validate user
input and the respective input. For example the system does not accept blank field;
the system also discriminate between
numerical and numerical characters.

PRESENTATION OF RESULTS

The presentation of the results of PRMS is analyzed in terms of the

interfaces of the system and output from the backend of the system. This includes
activities of the users.

4.

EVALUATION AND RISK ANALYSIS

Strength of the Current System

These were introduced to solve problems with the existing manual systems.
The automated Patient information Management system has many advantages over
the manual system. This can be explain as follow:
The major benefit with this is that it helps the staff to accomplish their daily
functions more efficiently. No more need for paper work.
Quick access to the required information as it is only one click away.
It solves the problem of time consuming, hence customers are served on
time.
It also enhances security as access to the system requires authentication.
This means that only authorized users can access that system.

After a thorough investigation of the present system, the following

loopholes were identified. Regular complaints by patients, hospital administrators,
staff and drug supplier concerning misplaced or lost financial payment forms. The
hospital administration finds it tiresome and time consuming when computing
patient, drug supplier and staff payment receipts and voucher cards respectively, this
leads to late release of reports concerning the performance in the hospital. The
hospital Administration currently uses health record files for storing patients, drug
suppliers, staffs records on payment respectively. This system of information

storage is susceptible to security problems such as illegal modification and update of

records.