A Proptotype Information Support System For The All Africa Leprosy And Rehabilitation Training Centre (ALERT)
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Date
1995-05
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
This thesis discusses the development and implementation of a micro-computer based system
designed for collecting and summarizing clinical information on leprosy patient visits to the
hospital of the All Africa Leprosy & Rehabilitation Training center (ALERT). The medical
records of leprosy patients are handled in the traditional hand written card called a Patient
Card. However, many problems are associated with it. It is very difficult to find , for
instance, a summary of diagnosis, treatments, sensation and muscle changes etc ., for a
patient over a number of visits. The manipulation of these data for statistical analysis and
make available for administrative, educational and research purposes has become very
difficult. Redundant handling of data in different sections of the hospital and problem of
access to the data between the sections are some added problems.
The objective of this study is to demonstrate that data about leprosy patients can be stored
ill micro computer databases which would be readily accessible for a variety of
administrative, clinical, educational and research related activities. A prototype of two
types of patient information handling system are shown in the application program: the
registration data, collected once and updated periodically; and the transaction data collected
each time the patient has an encounter with a health profess ional. The registration data
includes Patient Name, Patient ID , Address, and Date of Birth, Sex, Marital Status,
Nationality etc. Encounter data, usually linked to registration data through the Patient ID ,
includes the date of encounter, provider's name, signs, symptoms, diagnosis , treatments ,
etc.
The data flows and the logical data structures required in the diagnosis and treatment of
leprosy patients are designed using the data flow diagrams and logical data structures
respectively . There are 29 databases designed using the procedures followed in the
normalization process with the objective to avoid redundant handling of data and to avoid
the three common anomalies namely insertion , deletion and modification anomalies . The
major feature of these databases is that they are designed irrespective of a particular
software in mind, with the objective to facilitate use of any software selected for the
purpose .
The thesis describes the need for the implementation of a physician' s workstation with an
online medical record of leprosy patients and proposes a Local Area Network (LAN) with
a distributed database management system where each section of the hospital will have their
own data and share data to and from other sections but for dissemination and analysis
purposes data can be aggregated at a central information unit.
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Keywords
Information Science