I.T. Project : Dental Surgery Filing System

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I.T. Project : Dental Surgery Filing System

Identification of Problem

Problem 1 - I have noticed that at my dental surgery, they use a manual filing system to keep record of all the patients' records and when a record is needed by the dentist, the receptionist has to sort through the records in order to find it. I feel that they would benefit from having a computer version running to help save both time and effort for the receptionists.

Problem 2 - When a patient wishes to book an appointment, the receptionist must sort through the booked appointments, which are written in a book, to check whether a certain time or date is available. This problem could also be resolved using computers. Problem 3 - The surgery types up individual letters to be sent to different patients to inform them of different events and remind them about upcoming appointments. This task would be much easier using certain software on the computer.

Benefits of a Computerised System

It would be very beneficial for the surgery to use a computer-based system for a number of reasons. Searches for patients can be carried out much faster. Communication between each dentist is much better as they can each share dentistry records etc. over a network rather than having a receptionist to go back and forth delivering them, and they will also be able to alter and add new records with not much difficulty and from anywhere in the world considering their network will allow this. The chance of records being lost or damaged by receptionists or dentists is lower unless they crash the system, and even then if the data has been backed up it can be easily restored. Access to records can be restricted on different levels so that very confidential records cannot be accessed by just anyone. Useful queries can be carried out on computer much more quickly and efficiently than if done manually. Data can be printed using a variety of fonts, colours, and sizes to help focus the dentist's attention on the most important data. In addition, images can be combined with textual data to create a more complete "picture" of the patient's condition. Double bookings are a thing of the past as computers can quickly sort through the data to check whether a certain time and date has been allocated to someone else. Software can be used on the computer so that letters can be typed up and names of patients can be entered from the database automatically, rather than typing each letter up manually to each patient. Complex calculations can be done much quicker on the computer using formulae.

Problem Outline

As stated before, my local dentist, Ayres Road Dental Surgery, uses a manual filing system. I have decided that it would be very beneficial if they used a computerised system to handle the patient's records. In order for me to create this however, I have designed a few end user requirements as guidelines to make sure I have an idea of what is required of this system.

End User Requirements

* The system must be simple for non-technical staff to use and contain a variety of different colours and styles to make important things stand out and also be colour blind friendly.

* The system must consist of a table containing relevant information about each patient (e.g. name, address etc.)

* The system must be re-usable so new patients can be added to the system.
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* A simple data capture form must be designed for entering data into the system that is easy for both technical and non-technical users to understand.

* A simple form to navigate the system must be designed which is also easy for non-technical staff.

Information To Output From The System

The information to output is an A4 sheet containing a list of all the current patients in the database, with the surnames in alphabetical order, including their name, sex, date of birth, postcode and date of last visit. A list of all the patients who ...

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