Design and Implementation of an Electronic Patient Management System. (a Case Study of Shonahan Hospital, Nsukka Enugu)
Chapter One
Objectives of the Study
The primary purpose of this project is to enhance the reliability, security, and convenience in the administration of Shonahan Hospital, Nsukka, Enugu, and to have a database that contains complete and comprehensive details of patient departmental payment records as well as a computer based attendance scheme.
The subsidiary objectives of this project are:
- To improve checkup and treatment load functionality: Staffing level and appropriate skill-mix per shift can be more easily determined by the shift modules. This leads to less time spent in designing and amending roasters.
- Better care planning: Time spent on care planning is reducing, while the quality of what is recorded improved. This makes for more complete care plans and more complete assessments and evaluations.
- To facilitate diagnosis of patients thereby reducing patients wasting time
- To exploit the use of ICT as a platform for medical services
- To better drugs administration
- For better maintenance of duty rosters
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
According to David (1992),an electronic based attendance scheme for patients provides the information necessary to begin an effective attendance management program, which will yield long-term results. The electronic based attendance scheme for patients is intended to be a guide rather than` an instruction manual or policy. To make an attendance management program truly successful, it will require insight into the special dynamics present in my work place. It will require two-way communication, as both the needs of the employees and of management must be met if good attendance is too achieved.
Attendance is the responsibility to everyone, especially those who directly manage the human resources of my organization. Attendance is not only an expectation; employers have the right to receive good attendance. Each and every employee has a contractual obligation to attend work regularly. All levels of management must believe in, be committed to, and communicate their expectations of good attendance. If a specific number of sick days are considered acceptable per employee, at best that will be the result. Employees will live up to the expectations that will set for them. Expectations must be clear to both management programs to get maximum results. Goals must be tangible. Attendance expectations must be clearly communicated and followed.
According to Sandra (2007), the patients’ registration regulations govern the admissions and attendance registers that all hospitals must keep. They also regulate the power of special hospitals and maintained hospitals to grant leave of absence.By the law, hospitals are required to record in the attendance register once at the beginning of the morning session and once during the afternoon whether the patient is present, absent, engaged in an approved, supervised activity off-site, or unable to attend due to exceptional circumstance as defined in regulation. If a compulsory patient is absent the registers must show whether the absence is authorized or unauthorized. It must also record the nature of any approved, supervised activities.Reduced patients’ absence and persistent absence to treatment and checkup is a vital and integral part of hospitals’ and local authorizes’ work to:
- Promote patients’ welfare and
- Ensure every patient has access to the full-time to which they are
- Ensure that patients’ succeed whilst at
- Ensure that patients have access to the widest possible range of opportunities when they leave school.
According to Charles Bugger (2000), nursing attendance scheme for patients information system are computer systems that manage clinical data from a variety of healthcare environment, and made available in a timely and orderly fashion to aid patients in improving patient care. To achieve this, most nursing attendance scheme for patients information systems are designed using a database and at least one nursing classification language such as North American Nursing Diagnosis (NANDA), Nursing Intervention Classification (NIC) and Nursing Diagnosis Extension and Classification (NDEC).
Patient Management System
According to Wikipedia.org, An ElectronicPatient Management System (PMS) is a comprehensive, integrated information system designed to manage the medical, administrative, financial and legal aspects of a hospital and its service processing. It can be composed of one or a few software components with specialty-specific extensions as well as of a large variety of sub-systems in medical specialties, e.g. Laboratory Information System (LIS), Radiology Information System (RIS) or Picture archiving and communication system (PACS).
An ElectronicPatient Management System is essentially a computer system that can manage all the information to allow health care providers to do their jobs effectively. These systems have been around since they were first introduced in the 1960s and have evolved with time and the modernization of healthcare facilities. The computers were not as fast in those days and they were not able to provide information in real time as they do today. The staff used them primarily for managing billing and hospital inventory. All this has changed now, and today hospital information systems include the integration of all clinical, financial and administrative applications.
Modern Electronic Patient Management Systems’ includes many applications addressing the needs of various departments in a hospital. They manage the data related to the clinic, finance department, laboratory, nursing, pharmacy and also the radiology and pathology departments. The hospitals that have switched to electronic Patient Management System have access to quick and reliable information including patients’ records illustrating details about their demographics, gender, age etc. By a simple click of the mouse they receive important data pertaining to hospital finance systems, diet of patients, and even the distribution of medications. With this information they can monitor drug usage in the facility and improve its effectiveness.As an area of medical informatics, the aim of an Electronic Patient management System is to achieve the best possible support of patient care and outcome and administration by presenting data where needed and acquiring data when generated with networked electronic data processing.
CHAPTER THREE
SYSTEMANALYSIS AND DESIGN
Methodology
Research Methodology is the idea within which research is arranged or done according to plan. This methodology is on the basis of critical examination undertaken, with the act to find new facts and information that would enhance patient empowerment and improve the quality of care in terms of efficiency and effectiveness.This methodology used examines the methods that are necessary to achieve these required subjects, facts and other relevant information connected to the project research with reduced expenses on effort, time and money.
Method of Data Collection
The source of data collection used for this project work are categorized into primary and secondary source of data collection.
Primary Source
These aremethod of data collection collected from the doctors and nurses in Shonahan Hospital,Nsukka, Enugu. Also more data from patient, attendants and patrons of the hospital including personal interviews and observation. Some of the staffs were interviewed to share their feelings and experiences about the manual system of planning and processing workers and patient care duty. They stressed that the manual system has not helped them much.
Secondary Source
This includes the use of several newspapers, magazines,journals and surfing the internet with related articles on electronic patient management system downloads to enlighten my understanding with aclearer view or picture.
CHAPTER FOUR
SYSTEM IMPLEMENTATION, TESTING AND INTEGRATION
Choice of Development Tools
The development tools are defined as the basic required devices that are used during the design of the computer based processing and publishing system to enable the programmer design an effective and efficientsoftware. There were five components that were needed to be added in the system when the development of the system was yet at an initial stage. These components can be referred to as the software development tool. The under listed tools were chosen and used because of their features and ease of accessibility. These tools are briefly discussed below:
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY, RECOMMENDATION AND CONCLUSIONS.
Summary
The essence of this project work takes a look at the various problems associated with the existing system which are improper documentation, loss and mismatch of patient data, time wastage etc. With all these problems being critically analysed, a solution was embarked on, to eliminate these problems. With the design of an electronic patient management systemsuch problems are considered to be history, in the sense that this new system is able to provide as well as guarantee the following:
- Easy
- Eliminateloss of payment
- Reduction of time spent during
- Reduces the number of errors made during
The various design methods used in accomplishing this task were discussed in details in all the chapters of this project work.
.It updates the references for duty roster files; adds a reference for examples, some methods used in portraying details to units of varying size; and provide additional guidance on the use of explanatory remarks on duty roster. It also changes figure to provide an example of a consolidated roster, to illustrate a variety of explanatory remark and their listing on the reverse of attendance scheme for patients Form.
Limitations
However, because of limited funds, the new system was not fully implemented with the features that was dully meant to be. The researcher did his best to develop a functional system with the material and tools available. To be precise, the problem of availability of information about patients’ data and records in Shonahan Hospital posed a serious setback to the researcher. Although, there wasn’t much external information on this aspect. The researcher as a result of this had to make use of the limited information from Shonahan staff, my experience as a patient and intuition to provide a workable platform for the success of the project work. These among others were the problem encountered during the course of the project work.
Recommendation
In this project work, I recommend that computer based attendance scheme for patients should be used by the hospital to create process and record their attendance scheme for patients’ information. This system is used to calculate the nurses punctuate to work and to keep good and reliable history of patient health care. It is an effective tool in the hand of the hospital management. Duty is a term that conveys a sense of moral commitment is the sort that results in action, and it is not a matter of passive feelings or mere recognition. When someone recognizes a duty, that person commits himself/herself to the cause involved without considering the self-interesting courses of actions that may have relevant previously. This is not to suggest that living a life of duty precludes one from the best sort of life, but duty does involve some sacrifice of immediate self-interest.
Conclusion
Based on the objectives of this study and the various analysis made, I hereby conclude that the Electronic Patient management system has formed an integral part of Information Technology (IT) in Computer Engineering Department and all institution of higher learning at large. As the cases presented in this project demonstrated, the patients’ role in the health care arena is expanding, and nurses are becoming an increasingly critical link between patient and physicians. Nurses and Doctors must take affirmative steps to learn the applicable standards of care for their particular skills, so that they can be able to make independent assessments of patient’s condition, and also to enable them recognize signs and symptoms that they must communicate to patients’ physicians.
Conclusively, this project work has been a worthwhile effect because it has expose me to project design and implementation which I know will surely be an experience that will be of help to me in the near future.
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