DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF A COMPUTERIZED OUT-PATIENT INFORMATION SYSTEM FOR A CLINIC (A CASE STUDY OF HANSA CLINIC ENUGU)

CHAPTER ONE

1.1. INTRODUCTION

A clinic is an institution with an organized medical and nursing staff, provide a range of medical service, like surgery, for people requiring intensive treatment or observation.

It may also include facilities for childbirth as well as various out-patient departments.

A clinic is not make up of various departments where various cases and handled. For example

1. The surgery department where patients are operated on in the theaters.
2. Obstetrics and gynecology unit where pregnant women are taken care of.
3. Pediatric department where you treat children.

An outpatient is a patient who does not reside in the clinic where he/she is being treated. The registers of the outpatients are used for documentation of the outpatients. The documentation of the outpatients. The data for outpatient registers are registration number, name of patient, age, sex, registration address etc.

The outpatient unit is made up of casually section, records, outpatient, theaters, various clinics etc.

The treatment of the outpatients ends in the outpatient department which that of the inpatients ends in their various wards.

1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

It could be very burdensome for someone who is seriously ill. It wounded or weak to queue on clinic line waiting for the doctor to attend to him or to pay for service and also get drugs.

But when the designing and implementation of a computerize outpatient information system is achieved, a lot of problems will be documented for the outpatient. These problems includes:

• Time wastage
• Absence of doctors involved
• File sorting

1.3. PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

Hospital organization today is a essential part of the medical care scheme, owing to the increasing complexity of medical problem. It is very necessary that medical practitioners and specialists have an up to data and automated services.

This study will examine the problem arising from manual operations of the outpatient information system and how these can be conquered by introducing the computer. This research work also aims at designing a statement that can replace the manual operations of the outpatient information system

1.4. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The significance of this study is that it eliminates:-

1. Time Wastage:- When this study is practiced the time an outpatient wastes in registering seeing the doctor, buying drugs will be eliminated. Because it will no longer be handled manually rather it is going to be computer based.
2. It also eliminates inconveniency:- In a situation whereby a patient registered in the clinic for the past three and later came back in the fourth year for the check up, the information of that out-patient can be accessed convenient using the computer, rather than searching for the outpatient information or records manually

1.5. SCOPE OF THE STUDY

The scope of this study is limited to the design and implementation of a computerize outpatient information system for the Hansa clinics Enugu.

1.6. ASSUMPTIONS

It is assumed that all the data located are true valid. It is also assumed that the basic requirements of the outpatient information system should not be changed often so that the program will score for a very long time.

1.7. DEFINITION OF TERMS

Diagnosis:- It means a determination of an individuals disease, illness, or injury, made by a health care provider.

Patient: A person who is receiving medical care  form a doctor.

Outpatient: A patient who is not an inpatient (not hospitalized), but instead comes to a doctor’s office, clinic or day surgery for treatment.

Inpatient: A patient living in the hospital where he is being treated

File: A collection of related records or a folder that is based keep documents

Prescription: A written instructions from a physician to a pharmacist stating the form, closage, strength, etc, of a drug to be issued to a specific patient.

Data: These are raw facts, but when captured or processed, generates information

Program: A sequence of coded instruction fed into a computer, enabling it to perform specified logical and arithmetical operations on data.