Computing AS Project Documentation

One of the administrative tasks in a hospital is to keep a record of loans to patients of equipment such as wheelchairs and crutches. The patients borrowing the equipment may still be in hospital or they may have been discharged. Records have to be kept of what equipment has been borrowed, by whom and when, and also if any equipment is not available because it is being repaired.

You have been asked to create a computer application to replace the present manual one to record the necessary details to enable greater control to be kept and so cut down on loss and wastage.

Design

For this project, I am going to use Microsoft Access.

The table below shows my design tasks list for the hospital patient and equipment database.

Task Number

Object

Task Description

Patient Table

Design the Patient table and the properties of its attributes

Equipment Table

Design the Equipment table and the properties of its attributes

Equipment Status Table

Design the Equpstat table for the Equipment Form Drop-down box

Patient Titles Table

Design the Titles table for the Patient Form Drop-down box

Equipment Report

Design a Report to show current equipment status

Equipment Return Letter

Design a report, in the style of a letter, which is sent to patients who have overdue equipment.

Patient Entry Form

Design a form to provide a “front end” for the patient entry table

Equipment Booking Form

Design a form to book equipment out to patients

Main Menu Form

Design a form which can execute the other forms and records

Autoexec Macro

Design a Macro that executes automatically on database open and opens the main menu

Security

Implement some kind of security into the database

Design of Equipment Loaning System

There are several types of equipment, ranging from wheelchairs to neck collars, and each type of equipment is available in different sizes, there are also several of each type and size of equipment.

When deciding how to input and store the equipment into my database, I decided that their was two potential paths that I could follow: to place the equipment into my database with one record for each type and size of equipment, and having a “number in stock” field to represent multiples of equipment types with the same size. The second way of representing the data would be to let each individual piece of equipment have its own record.

I elected to take the second route, although it would take more space, it would mean that if an item was damaged in someway, a note of the problem could be made in a “notes” field in the items record.

The second problem I discovered was coming up with a way of having a code for each individual piece of equipment. Again, I found two main ways of doing this: An auto number system, or a system which would allow a user to determine what the equipment is just by looking at the code. I felt that the second way would be a better way of doing this, so I devised a system that fulfils this requirement (shown below).

Item Codes

Code

Explanation

WC

Wheelchair

CR

Crutch

EC

Elbow Crutch

NC

Neck Collar

-J

Junior Size

-S

Small Size

-M

Medium Size

-L

Large Size

-A

Adult Size

To get the individual items code, you simply add a number onto the end of the code. E.g. Junior Wheelchair number 1 would be WC-J1.Using this system, new pieces of equipment can be added with ease, whereas with an auto number system, it would mess up the order of the numbers.

Equipment Booking Form Design

Security

This database holds confidential information about patients, and should therefore be kept secure from illegitimate access, both physically and electronically. As stated in the data protection act, it would be the hospitals responsibility to keep the data secure. I have employed a basic password protection system into the database, with only one user, as I feel that a multi user password system with different levels of access for each user would be inappropriate in this instance because the only users would be the desk staff, and occasionally the administrator for backup purposes.

To provide security on an electronic level, I would recommend making sure there is an appropriate firewall system installed if the terminal the database is running on is connected to any network external to the hospital. I would also recommend a weekly backup to a removable media, kept in a fireproof safe, with back copies kept for as long as possible, in case the system is infected with an undetected Trojan. On a physical level, I would recommend that rooms where terminals have access to the database are kept locked.

Implementation

Task Number

Object

Screen Dumps from Access

Patient Table

Design Views of Patient Table

Patient Table

Data Views of Patient Table

Equipment Table

Design Views of Equipment Table

Equipment Table

Data Views of Equipment Table

Equipment Status Table

Design Views of Equipment Status Table

Patient Titles Table

Design Views of Patient Titles Table

All Tables

Screen Dump of Entity Relationship Diagram

Equipment Report

Screen Dump of Equipment Report

Equipment Return Letter

Screen Dump of Customer Letter (Report)

Equipment Form

Design View of Equipment Form

Equipment Form

Data View of Equipment Form

Patient Form

Design View of Patient Form

Patient Form

Data View of Patient Form

Main Menu Form

Design View of Main Menu Form

Main Menu Form

Data View of Main Menu Form

Main Menu Form

Show Visual Basic Code used

Autoexec Macro

Screen Dump of Autoexec Macro

Patient Table

Equipment Table

Equipment Status Table

Patient Titles Table

Entity Relationship Diagram

Equipment Report

Customer Letter Report

Equipment Form

Patient Form

Main Menu Form

Main Menu (Vb Code)

For the main menu, I decided to incorporate a clock, as it provides a purpose (to tell the time), and also looks good on the form.

Equipment Form (Vb Code)

For the equipment booking form, I used two visual basic sub forms; the first sets the return date and the out date when the “loan out” button is pressed, and the second sets the return date and the out date to zero when the combo box which controls the status of the item is changed. I used this last bit of code because it saves the user having to delete the date manually when the equipment is returned from loan, but it has the downside of having to set the status before pressing the “loan out” button, otherwise it undoes this action.

Autoexec Macro

To add a professional finish to my database, I made a macro that opened the main menu form automatically on open. This requires no Vb coding, just a macro called Autoexec.