I have been given the task of creating a system for a hospital to keep records of their loan equipment. It needs to be able to keep records of what equipment has been borrowed, by whom and when, and also if any equipment is unavailable as it is in repair.

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PAPER 3 COMPUTING COURSEWORK

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INTRODUCTION 5

SYSTEMS LIFE CYCLE 5

GATHERING DATA 6

PROBLEMS OF EXISTING SYSTEM 6

OBJECTIVES OF NEW SYSTEM 7

DESIGN 8

Feasibility of Using a Computer Based System: 8

Performance Requirements: 8

Costs: 8

Hardware 9

Software 9

Excel: 9

Access: 10

High Level Languages: 11

Evaluation of Software: 11

DATA REQUIREMENTS: 12

DATA FLOW 13

Data Flow Diagrams: 13

ENTITY-RELATIONSHIP DIAGRAMS 15

SYSTEM DESIGN 16

Top Down Design: 16

Jackson Structure Diagram: 16

User Interface: 17

Interface Styles: 18

. Command Line Interface (e.g. MSDOS) 18

2. Menu's 18

Full Screen Menu: 18

Pull-Down Menu: 19

Pop-Up Menu: 19

3. Natural Language 19

4. Forms & Dialogue Boxes 20

Advantages of Using a Common User Interface: 20

MY DESIGN: 21

Outputs: 21

Hard Copy of Equipment: 21

Weekly Report: 21

Menus: 22

Methods of Data Entry: 23

Tables: 24

Security and Integrity of Data: 25

Validation Rules: 25

Back-Ups 25

Security: 25

Passwords 25

Encryption 25

Password Locks 25

IMPLEMENTATION 26

Entering Data Stores: 26

Data Entry Page: 27

Loan Equipment Macro: 29

Validation Rules To Prevent Human Error: 30

Viewing Patient Details: 32

Mail Merge Letter 33

Patient Search Facilities: 34

Managers Area: 35

Main Menu 36

Making the Spreadsheet User Friendly: 37

Security 38

Testing the Buttons: 39

Navigation Buttons: 39

Operation Buttons: 40

Testing Validation Rules: 41

MAINTENANCE: 42

User Documentation 42

System Documentation 42

Introduction

I have been given the task of creating a system for a hospital to keep records of their loan equipment. It needs to be able to keep records of what equipment has been borrowed, by whom and when, and also if any equipment is unavailable as it is in repair.

Systems Life Cycle

We have already been given the information for a problem definition, feasibility study and analysis, but have been told that we do not need to do these stages of design. However if I were to document the whole system I would use the system life cycle, as it helps designers approach the design in a methodical way. I have shown the life cycle below:

. Problem Definition - the problem will be defined by the user

2. Feasibility Study - investigate the system and decide if there is need for a new system

3. Analysis - analyse the requirements and produce a specification

4. Design - the design is produced

5. Construction

6. Testing - system is fully tested

7. Implementation - system implemented and users trained

8. Maintenance - there are three types of maintenance:

a. Perfective maintenance, where you make the system easier to use or you add new facilities

b. Adaptive maintenance, where you make changes to suit the changes in working environment

c. Corrective maintenance, where you change something because of errors discovered in the original system

9. Evaluation - evaluation of the system and if it meets the requirements of the user

Gathering Data

If I had to collect the data on the requirements of the new system and the problems with the old one, I would use the following four techniques:

. Interviewing staff at different levels about the present system and what they would like to see from the new system.

2. Sending out questionnaires and analyzing results.

3. Observing current procedures with current system.

4. Examine current business and systems documents and outputs

Problems of Existing System

The present system in use at the hospital is a manual one, this means everything is recorded by hand on paper. This is an extremely inefficient way of recording the data as information can easily be lost or misplaced. We are also told that there is a need for a new system to "cut down on loss and wastage", so the new system must be reliable. This suggests that the secretary has a lot to do with the possibility of hundreds of different files.

Objectives of New System

There are several specifications for the new system, these are:

. Ability to store details of equipment (how many in stock and price of equipment)

2. An Item code has to be devised which identifies each piece of equipment individually, while also indicating what type of equipment it is.

3. Be able to find information for any individual piece of equipment:

a. Whether it is available, being repaired or out on loan

b. If on loan, to whom, and at what address or ward number

c. If on loan, when it is due for return or the loan renewed

d. If being repaired, when it was sent for repair

4. Be able to produce a hard copy of this information for any piece of equipment

5. To enable patients to have more than one piece of equipment out on loan at a particular time (e.g. 2 crutches and a wheelchair)

6. At the end of each week, a full report of the location of all equipment is to be produced. If equipment is due for return or renewal during the following week, that patient must be contacted, with a standard letter.

DESIGN

Feasibility of Using a Computer Based System:

It has been required that I should produce a computer based system for the hospital. There are many advantages to a computer based rather than a non-computerised system these advantages include:

* Computer systems can be backed up on a regular basis very easily. So that in the event of a fire or if the computers were to contract a virus, the files are not lost altogether. However if the system was not computerised and there was a fire, the data would be lost. This could lead to a loss of customers due to a lack to reliability.

* A computer system can be modified and changed more easily than a non-computerised system. E.g. if you wanted to change the format of the customer data entry forms on a computer it could be done in a few minutes but manually on a non computerised system it would take a very long time to rewrite the records if they were held on card.

* A computerised system can find files within seconds where as on a card filing system it would take people a lot longer as it has to all be done by people and then the process is subject to human error.

Performance Requirements:

The client has stated that one of the main reasons to have the system is to save time and cut down on wages. This means that the system must be capable of retrieving data quickly and the system must be easy to use. The speed is one of the major factors, but must create a system that does not take up vast amounts of memory.

Costs:

The initial starting out costs will be the machine purchase, and basic unit for it to go on (unless already owned). Other costs that must be taken into consideration are training costs, staff will have to be trained how to use the system quickly and efficiently. Staff training costs should be low as the system is going to be designed so that it is easy to use and understand, this helps both the employee pick it up quickly and the employer spending less money on staff training. Maintenance is not going to be a major cost, the system will be designed to work effectively around the clock so will not need extra time and money spent on it.

I will now look at the hardware and software which are most appropriate for the system:

Hardware

The hardware of a machine is the physical machinery, which makes up the computer. In order to start to think about designing a system I need to first of all think about the possible use of different types of hardware: -

* Computer - The actual machine which processes all the data

* Keyboard - used mainly to enter in data about the customer, equipment and loan duration

* Visual Display Unit - A user-friendly way to display the system.

* Computer mouse - to select different function options.

* Screen Touch Screen - to speed up the input of data and other functions within the system.

* Screen pens - to speed up processes within the system especially the input of data.

I have decided to keep the hardware simple any only have a computer, keyboard, VDU and mouse. This is relatively cheep compared with the other options and will be easy for the user to understand.

Software

There are three main choices of software these are Excel a spreadsheet, Access a database or a high level language such as Pascal. All have advantages and disadvantages.

Excel:

Excel has many advantages including:

* Excel allows you to insert buttons or macros these allow you to open and close forms at the click of a button. They also allow you to do things like calculations and formulas.

* Excel allows you to highlight different cells in colour and fill effects.

* There is a formula bar at the top, which displays the formula of the cell you are viewing; here you can also edit the formula.

* You can create look-up tables.

* You can create graphs using the easy to understand Wizard tool.

* In Excel you can also copy the cell of a formula from cell you cell. This can be very useful when using a formula to calculate a certain equation.

* You can name cells, giving one a unique cell reference.

* Excel is a multi dimensional spreadsheet, this means that you can have as many sheets as you want, this is also known as a three dimensional spreadsheet.

* I have a relatively good knowledge of this software

Excel has disadvantages as well as advantages, these include: -

* If you change the name of a page after making a macro it can't find the correct page because it has changed names. This means you then have to go into Visual Basic and manually change the name of the page on the actual piece of code. This all takes time and if you change more than one page's name it will take a very long time.
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* With the labels of the graph they will not change with the data so you end up having to go over the whole process of making a graph again.

Access:

I will now look at the advantages and disadvantages of access:

* Access can make forms to insert data.

* In Access you can have macros to go between forms and queries.

* Access is not a flat file database so you can also create relationships between tables of data.

* It has a query language, which means it can ...

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