DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF PATIENT MANAGEMENT
SYSTEM
CHAPTER ONE
1.0
INTRODUCTION
Generally,
computer has played an important role in global economy in various ways. The Computer
is used in many different fields such as in education for learning, in entertainment
industries, for management, for problem solving and in business e.t.c.
Due
to its importance it has been recognized world-wide. One of its vital roles is
in management systems.
Today
in health services, management of patient records requires a process and
keeping of records from different departments in the hospital. All these record
are very vital information needed by the organization for efficient and
effective operation.
Patient
Management Systems (PMS) are extensive, coordinated information systems design
to manage patient’s data in hospitals with the administrative process. Health
care centers depend on patient
information, for the efficient of administrative process, for better
management. The principle objective of PMS is to streamline the stream of data
from the hospital towards decision making for patient planning and management
in an enhanced and effective ways. Recording of
data, be it medical, individual, money related or lawful, or recording
of medicinal faculty data on paper is at danger of thieves, fire, mislay by the
staff and even altering the content. A Computerize
PMS will be important in light of the fact that, there are a considerable
measure of challenges in keeping up a lot of data on paper, particularly as
there is usually no backup for the data, access to data can be tedious in the
event that require for the search of a file, and accuracy is required in the
recording of key data, and the administrator cannot manage all that is composed
on the tremendous measure of paper to be utilized. Hence, it is very important for health
organizations like hospitals and clinics to have a computerized patient
management system.
There
are various clinic administration applications, open source and non-open
source, yet they are generally hard to modify or restrictive and immoderate,
and their plans are not promptly accessible for upgrades. The aim of this
project work is, to design and implement a patient record management system
that would upgrade data integrity, avoid translation slips by minimizing the risks
of wrong documentation, decrease duplication of data, avoid the risk of
pilferage as related information would be promptly accessible electronically,
and keep records of in and out patients.
Effective
management of data in organization is important for the ideal upkeep and
development of that organization. Management of data in health organization can
in some cases be the difference between life and death. Hospitals will be
benefit from the proposed system.
1.1
BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
The Federal Medical Council (FMC), defines patient
records as “ vital information that involves recording information, images
generated based on fact, signs, and history of patient record and treatment
received, which is of legal, confidential that makes it possible to have
communication among members of the hospitals team and the continuity of the
care given to the individual” patient records need to be legible, organized and
documented.
The
term hospital is derived from the Latin word “hospitalis‟, which identifies the
visitors and their treatment. The word hospital show the early utilization of
the establishment not as a place for healing, the hospital then was used as a
place of safety, refuge and protection for tired travellers and for the poor.
The term hospital first came up in Greece as Aesculapius, named after the Greek
god of medicine, Aesculapius (Risse, 1990). For a lengthy period of time they associates
with foundations of religious, the example of such are, the Hindu hospital of
the middle age of the European (fifth to fifteenth century) was opened in Sri Lanka in the fifth century
B.C. the Hotel Dieu in paris was a hospital setup for general used in ad 660 is
still functioning till today(Science Museum, 2014)
An
initial data or information received and stored at the initial stage is called
record. records Management is the discipline of professional or their practice
of governing and controlling the most vital information throughout the records life cycle for the
organization.
A
medical error is a preventable adverse result that may happen during a medical
process independent of whether it is obvious or destructive to the casualty
(the patient). Medical errors happen when a medical staff of hospitals utilizes
an unsuitable system of care or performs a wrong strategy of care. These errors
are frequently referred to as human errors in hospitals. Example of error that
may occur include wrong documentation, misdiagnosis, administration of wrong
medication to the patient or in the wrong way, which at times may be because of
misrepresentation of data, illegible handwriting, insufficient medical
attendant to-patient, Patient action may also contribute to the medical error
(Wikipedia 2014).
Most hospitals today still keep the manual
method of operating (paper and pen) and strategies for keeping records. This
procedure may include use of printed forms that incorporate all the important
fields for the medical process of medical department, the development of
computerized world and the presence of modern day devices which work at high
speeds recommend that this manual method can be enhanced and be more
productive. Digital advancements of this methodology can reduce expenses,
enhance patient safety and increase the pace of the manual method, thereby
making it more proficient.
The
University Health Service (UHS) of Federal University of Technology Minna as a case study uses manual process in
gathering data and managed their
patients, which in some cases they encountered loss of patients files, the card
unit where the patients files are being
stored are not well arrange because of multiple patient files. Implementation
and uses of Computerized Patient Management System in Federal University of
Technology Minna Health Services will provide a lot of benefit to the staff
and management.
1.2
STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
Some
of the problems that this project is set to solve in the manual method of
keeping and retrieving patient information system are:
v Difficulties in
retrieving files: To retrieve a particular file
among all the files manually is always a difficult problem as its usually takes
a lot of time. In extreme case, it may lead to an emergency.
v Long queuing: During
registration, students remain in a queue for a long period before they could be
registered.
This problem can be solved by computerizing the
hospital patient information.
v Documentation:
There is a lot of problem in keeping all the patient files, since a large
number of patients files are to be documented.
v Poor communication:
the clinic experience poor communication among their staff because the
receptionist cannot communicate with the doctor about a patient without leaving
his office files likewise the Nurses, Pharmacist.
1.3
AIM
ANDOBJECTIVES
OF THE STUDY
The
aim of this project is to design and implement a Computerizes Patient
Management System for University Health Service of Federal University of
Technology Minna, Niger State.
The
main objectives of this project work include the following;
v
To
review and analyze the existing manual process of registration.
v To design a computerize Patient Management system.
v To implement the designed system
1.4
SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
Presently
the University Health Service (UHS) of Futminna operates on a manual records
system; with the implementation of this project work, the benefits listed below
will be achieved;
v It will provide adequate security to loss of patient file.
v It will reduce queuing
during registration
v It will enhance, improve and ease medical services.
v It will minimize the use of paper in making records.
v It will reduce the cost of money spent on purchasing written
documents like paper, pen, files printing of patient card etc.
1.5
SCOPE OF THE STUDY
The scope of this project work is to design a system that will
enable the receptionist to register patients, assign patients to doctor, and
enable communication between doctor, pharmacist, receptionist, nurses and lab
technician.
1.6
LIMITATION OF THE STUDY
v This
system is limited with the students and staff of FUTMinna.
v The
system does not take into account payment for any treatment.
1.7
DEFINITIONS
OF TERMS
v
Computerization: The act of converting manual functions or system into a Computer system
v
Clinical:
dealing with how to practically manage patients, contrasting with Prehealth sciences
v
Data:
A representation of facts or ideas in a formalized manner capable of being
communicated or manipulated by some process.
v
Doctor: is
a member of medical association, the one who is trained and licensed to heal
and treat the sick person.
v
Patients: A
person who receives treatments from a doctor or other medically educated person.
v
Hospitals: A
building designed to diagnosis and treats the sick, injured or dying. they usually
have staff of doctors and nurses to aid in the treatment of patients
v
UHS: university health services, is a medical
center in the school campus where patients are diagnosed and treated.
v Systems administrator
The systems administrator-database
administrator is responsible for systems administration to ensure high uptime
of the system and for handling all database back-up and restore activities.