A PROPOSAL ON

DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF DATABASE SYSTEM FOR STORING AND

RETRIEVING MEDICAL RECORDS (A CASE STUDY OF FEDERAL
POLYTECHNIC ADO-EKITI HEALTH CENTER)

PREPARED

BY

AJAYI ABIODUN ANDREW

FPA/CS/22/3-0115

SUPERVISED BY

MR. S.O. AKINWAMIDE

SUBMITTED TO

THE DEPARTMENT OF COMPUTER SCIENCE

SCHOOL OF SCIENCE AND COMPUTER STUDIES
THE FEDERAL POLYTECHNIC, ADO-EKITI, EKITI STATE.

IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE AWARD OF HIGHER NATIONAL

DIPLOMA (HND) IN COMPUTER SCIENCE

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1.1 Introduction

Hospitals are key institutions and there is need for efficient service delivery in the

hospital as good health is paramount to a happy society. As a result of this there is need for a

system that will enable hospital management in making effective and efficient decision

(Oparah 2016). Recently, efforts are continuously being made in designing and constructing a

user friendly and reliable database system to satisfy hospital or medical management system

(James and J, 2015.). On the other hand, many hospitals and medical centers are still adopting

the manual system of hospital management. These methods of medical management system

have continued to pose a lot of setbacks and problems to medical practitioners, nurses,

patients and other staff in both government and private hospitals.

Database is a collection of logically related files, organized in a manner to satisfy the

needs of an organization. A database is a store of data structured so that access and update

can be made by different people in different ways without needs to change its design or

content for this to happen, it is essential that all data items are logically related. Database

management system are important, because important information requirement and non-

specialist need easy ways of accessing this information. Large amount of data with many

types of records occurring many times in database management system.

The main purpose of database is to satisfy the user information needs. The way in

which these needs are expressed largely determined the principles of operation of a particular

database system. Perhaps the most straight forward request for database is when the user

supplies a complete reference for a document. The job of the service then is to locate a copy

of the document and deliver it to the user.

A patient record, health record is a systematic documentation of a patient individual

medical history and care. The term ‘medical record’ is used both for the physical folder each

individual patient and for the body of information each comprises, the total of each patient

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health history. Patient records are intensely personal document and there many ethical and

legal issues surrounding them such as the degree of third-party access and appropriate storage

and disposal.

1.2 Related Work

Korpela, M. (2014), Nigeria Practice in Computer System Development, Stated that, medical

record system is an essential resource indispensable in the operation of management

information system. Without a record, there would be no complete information to work with.

Patients’ record must be accurate, reliable and timely for decision-making. The record system

demands a reasonable level of expertise in its handling and management.

Hill, D.W. (2018) Computer in Medical Services London, Stated that the use of manually

medical record data of patient registration and drugs placed on the patient supposed to be

documented on a computer, so that the mode of operation will be fast. In making use of the

manually operated, the patient stand at risk, because before his/her data will be recovered life

may be loss. He strongly recommend in the use of computer in keeping of patients data.

1.3 Statement of the problem

The problem of searching of medical records has become very crucial in areas of privacy of

data. Specifically regarding the source of the data analyzed for certain purpose. This research

in Federal Polytechnic Ado-Ekiti Health center will hereby reveals that patients visit the

hospital and they waste a lot of time. The patients waits for the nurses or the attendants to get

their information and there are volumes of files to search through before the patient’s files is

finally retrieved or the patients might forget his/her card when visit the Health Care. It

therefore means that the patient’s medical records cannot be found due to the fact that the

Nurse does not know the patients number. In this case it is either that the patients is denied

treatment by the Doctor or the Nurses will check through the volumes of files in order to

retrieved his/her data, this is time consuming problem. There is a problem of misplacing of

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patients data, the non-availability of relevant forms like x-ray/laboratory forms and chats

(pressure chats temperature) and requirement of more workers to carry the folders into the

consulting rooms as an evident.

Moreover, there are mistakes in entering patient’s records. Two patients might be given the

same number and there could be wrong spelling and loss of important information. There is

also lack of space for storing all the files and also due to carelessness on the part of staff.

Furthermore, volume of work for the hospital staff is much; this is because the ratio of

patients to staff of Federal Polytechnic Ado-Ekiti Health Care is so much. So staffs are over

worked and they hurry through their duty, hence they carry out such duties lousily which

makes the Doctors unfriendly to their patients.

1.4 Aim and objectives of the study

The aim of the study is to design and develop a reliable, scalable health care database system.

This is to be able to achieve the following objectives:

i. To be able to create a database for storage of patient’s information thereby

eliminating manual file storage of medical records.

ii. To be able to design a good software that will help in easy retrieval of patient’s

medical records or information thereby reducing time wastage and improve service

delivery.

iii. The database software will be able to discover hidden pattern in large volume of data

which will help in good decision making.

1.5 Methodology

I will be using required software package. The System will be developed with a Window,

Apache, MySQL and PHP (WAMP) software. The HDBMS would be a web application that

runs in a computer network. It would be able to provide easy and fast access to stored data as

needed by different users with security against unauthorized access. Any authorized user can

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add, delete and update data into the database base on their user-assigned-role. It would

equally have the facility to give a unique identity for every persons and stores the details of

every patient and the staff automatically

1.6 Scope of the study

The scope of this work is to develop a web base database application for medical record

system using Federal Polytechnic Ado-Ekiti Health center as a case study. The System will

be developed using a Window, Apache, MySQL and PHP (WAMP) software. It will be

implemented through a web browser.

1.7 Significance of the study

The significance of this project is a creation of good database system for the management of

patient’s medical records in Federal Polytechnic Ado-Ekiti Health Center and also provide

efficient web application for easy retrieval of data and discovery of hidden patterns in large

volume of data. It will help to give nurses the elementary knowledge as how computer can be

used to store and retrieve. The software developed will help to create and store database

about the patient. The database can be retrieved at any time by the users. Adequate security is

offered to the database stored to avoid corruption by wrong users. This is done through the

use of password to project the database. It is easy to obtain database or locate a particular

patient in that hospital by retrieving database concerning him from the system.

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 Reference

Oparah M (2016), Hospital management system: An Evaluation, global Indian Publication,

2016.

Mansi Chitkara, Namita Khandelwal, and Avinash Chaporkar, Project Report on Hospital

Management System”, (2010).

Ayodele Cole Benson, Hospital Information Systems in Nigeria: Review of Literature Vol.1,

No 3, 2011.