Abstract:
A new way is presented to build an information system addressed to problems in epidemiology.
Based on our analysis of current and future requirements, a system is proposed which
allows for collection, organization and distribution of data within a computer network.
In this application, two broad communities of users – physicians and epidemiologists
– can be identified, each with their own perspectives and goals. The different requirements
of each community lead us to a client-service centered architecture which provides
the functionality requirements of the two groups. The resulting physician workstation
provides help for recording and querying medical information about patients and from
a pharmacological database. All information is classified and coded in order to be
retrieved for pharmaco-economic studies. The service center receives information from
physician workstations and permits organizations that are in charge of statistical
studies to work with “real” data recorded during patient encounters. This leads to
a new approach in epidemiology. Studies can be carried out with a more efficient data
acquisition. For modelling the information system, we use an object-oriented approach.
We have observed that the object-oriented representation, particularly its concepts
of generalization, aggregation and encapsulation, are very usable for our problem.
Keywords:
Information Systems - Computer-Based Patient Record - Object-Oriented Design - Epidemiology
- Data Model - Coding - Classification
