An Online Outpatient Database System: A Case Study of General Hospital, Minna

Abstract

Outpatients receive medical treatment without being admitted to a hospital. They are not hospitalized for 24 hours or more but visit hospital, clinic or associated facility for diagnosis or treatment [1]. But the problems of keeping their records for quick access by the management and provision of confidential, secure medical report that facilitates planning and decision making and hence improves medical service delivery are vital issues. This paper explores the challenges of manual outpatient records system for General Hospital, Minna and infers solutions to the current challenges by designing an online outpatient’s database system. The main method used for this research work is interview. Two (2) doctors, three (3) nurses on duty and two (2) staff at the record room were interviewed. Fifty (50) sampled outpatient records were collected. The combination of PHP, MYSQL and MACROMIDIA DREAMVEAVER was used to design the webpage and input data. The records were implemented on the designed outpatient management system and the outputs were produced. The finding shows these challenges facing the manual system of inventory management system. Distortion of patient’s folder and difficulty in searching a patient’s folder, difficulty in relating previous complaint with the new complains because of volume of the folder, slow access to patient diagnosis history during emergency, lack of back up when an information is lost, and preparation of accurate and prompt reports make it become a difficult task as information is difficult to collect from various register. Based on the findings, this paper highlights the possible solutions to the above problems. An online outpatient database system was designed to keep the outpatients records and improve medical service delivery.