DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF AN INPATIENT AND OUTPATIENT SYSTEM

BY
NNAMDI EZISSI LLOYD
1807171060

A PROJECT REPORT SUBMITTED TO THE SCHOOL OF PART-TIME STUDIES (DAY) COMPUTER SCIENCE,
LAGOS STATE POLYTHECNIC, IN PARTIAL FULFILMENT OF THE REQUIREMENT FOR THE AWARD OF NATIONAL DIPLOMA 3.

NOVEMBER, 2021.
Abstract
In the present era of globalization and advanced technology, the need for efficient record keeping
cannot be overemphasized. As technology advances, manually maintaining information in different
organization become more and inadequate.
When a patient visits a hospital and is admitted, he/she is termed inpatient. Out-patient on the
other hand are patients who are not admitted but rather visit the hospital from homes. The patient visit
the hospital for diagnosis, treatment or therapy and leave as out-patient without staying overnight,
inpatient may stay overnight or for several days, weeks, months or even more than a year in some cases.
To effectively and efficiently care for patients, there is need for proper record maintenance. The
knowledge of the medical history of a patient is vital to determining the right cause of treatment. Laing
(2002) was of the opinion that digitizing information system will provide rapid context sensitive access
to the data and link it to other information system within the institution where the same information is
needed.
 Chapter 1
Introduction
1.1 Background of Study
 Most of the patient and administrative information that flow throughout the health care system is
still recorded on paper. In general, medical records may be on physical media such as films,
photographs often of different sizes and shapes. When the document is to be arranged on shelves it
becomes a problem because not all document fit in the same size folder or storage spaces.
 Medical Center’s offers 24 hours services to its staff and entire population. The records of patients
in the hospital have over time been run down in some medical center’s due to the large number of
patients(especially public medical center’s); this led to poor record keeping since it’s a paper base
system. The reason why the current system used is manual has led to a variety of problems. These
include;
 (i) Un-necessary duplication of the data especially for inpatient and outpatient.
 (ii) Incorrect entry of records and misfiling of patients record by nurses.
 The emergence of computer based information system has changed the world a great deal
both large and small system have adopted the new methodology, using personal computer to fulfill
several roles in the production of information. Computerization patient records will enable easier
manipulation of input process and output. The accuracy of data process depends on the manual or
computer information system design for collecting, recording, accessing and displaying data as
well as the ability of patient to follow through the information provided.
1.2 Statement of problem
 The absence of an efficient information system to serve patient and staff has
led to avoidable consequence such as tension, frustration, lack of attention or
denial of medical attention/care and arguments amongst other things between
nurses and patients. There happens that the patient cannot produce his/her
small card or when his/her folder is missing. The need arose to develop a
database system that will be able to solve these problems due to the weakness
of the existing system, which include over reliance on paper base work gave
rise to the need to develop a database system that will be able to solve these
problems. Furthermore there have been cases of missing files due to lack of
proper security at some medical center’s and the poor filling system in use.
1.3 Aims and Objectives Of Study

The aim of this study is to design and implement an inpatient and

outpatient management system. The objectives are as follows:
 • To examine the flaws of the current system employed in our
hospitals with regards to inpatients and outpatients.
 • To design solutions to those flaws found in the current system.
 • To implement those solutions by redesigning the existing system to
bring about an accurate, faster and reliable system.
1.4 Scope of Study

The software is capable of supporting any number of inpatient and outpatient

in the hospital. And each module of the software runs independently without
affecting other modules. The system is designed to enable data retrieval and
report generation of information on the types of diseases/procedures treated
within hospital, and create database of their inpatient and outpatient. The
programming languages used to create the system is PHP MySql.
1.5 Definition of Terms

• PHP- this an open-source server-side scripting language, this is also refer

to Parallel History Project.
• HOSPITAL: this is an institution where people with different ailment and injury
are given medical treatment. (Neame, 2001)
• THEATER: a special room in the hospital where medical operations or
surgery are done. (Dominic,1992)
• SECURITY CONTROL: This is an internal procedure design to protect
computer programs, record, etc against unauthorized users.
• LABORATORY: this is a place where medical test are been carried out to aid
patient treatment.
• OUTPATIENT: This refers to the patients that come to the hospital receive
treatment but does not stay in the hospital overnight.
• INPATIENT: This refers to the patient that is admitted and also receiving
treatment in the hospital. (Oko, 2014)
• NURSE: someone whose job is to look after people who are ill or injured in
the hospital.
• CONSULTANT: A hospital doctor of a very high rank who has a lot of
knowledge about a particular area of medicine. (Uguru, 2007)
• DATABASE: It is the collection of stored operational data used by an
organization which serve as a central located file in a defined computer storage
system.
 Chapter 2

Overview of the Present System

Currently, the systems of the different department of health care centers are isolated or individualized without proper and cohesive
communication among them. Consequently there is inefficient data sharing, for example the financial department uses simple excel spreadsheet
to record the paycheck, information of the employees which is inconvenient to retrieve and update employee’s information in the clinic
department, the doctors have to write down the prescriptions for the patients and keep the paper without proper information about the patient’s
insurance plans. The medical department has to keep the prescription and inventory records on their own computer system. Each system serves a
distinctive purpose and in isolated. This is no proper mutual relationship among the department. The systems may have duplicate data which is a
waste of space. The different system also may have different application programs which cause incompatible files.
In order to reduce this inconsistence, Oko (2014) suggested that database management system is necessary to ensure medical practitioner to
maintain his operations in an organized and well coordinated manner. This database save time and run the operations using the best database
management system against manual system.
Database management is helpful in hospital and keeping patient records like patient names, records of treatment etc. maintaining patient records
is really needed when you are allowed to refers to the patient old history which will enable the doctors to know the kind of disease the patient
was suffering before or the kind of treatment he/she received.
 Chapter 3
3.1 System Analysis
System Analysis is concerned mostly with data gathering and data analysis that
will determine the new system requirements, system analysis which is also
called feasibility study of the system is carried out at Medical Center’s through
interviews and observations to determine what already exist and what are
needed for computerizing database system for inpatient and outpatient.

3.1.1 System Design

System design is model of real world system that has many participating
entities and relationships. This design in different ways acts as a basis for
detailed implementation, it serves as a communication medium between the
designers of subsystem. It provides information to system maintainers about
original intentions of the system designer.

3.2 Fact Finding

The sources of the data collection used for this work are categorized into
primary and secondary source.
Primary source: these are method of data collection collected from the doctors
and nurses in Medical Center’s including personal interviews and observation.
Some of the staff were interviewed to share their feelings and experience
about the manual system. They stressed that the manual system has not
helped them much.
Secondary source: this includes the use of several newspapers, magazines,
journals and surfing the internet with related articles on database
management system.
Activity Diagram

The activity diagram is a pictorial representation that captures the

main activities of users on the system, starting from the point of gaining access to the system to the last main
activity of the system. This section describe the flow of which the system is being executed.
System Block Diagram

Key in the record through the keyboard

Inpatient record Outpatient record

Validation of record

Stored the data in database

Display data was successful stored

System Flowchart

Start

Login: Enter password and User name

Yes

Yes No
Main menu User Wrong password
or user name, try
again

Click on menu

No
sto
Patient/Staf Yes Patient / staff
f registration p
registration

No

Nurse / Nurse / Doctor

Yes Consultation
Doctor
Consultation

- No

Yes View patient

View patient
information
information
.

. No
Discharge patient
Yes
Discharge
patient

. No
Prescription
Prescriptio Yes.

n Stop Mc

Gra
 Chapter 4

4.1 Documentation and Implementation

The purpose of system implementation and documentation is to make the new
system available to the staff. The new system is designed for a medical practitioner to
keep track of all patients medical record/information such as diagnosis, drug
prescribed, admission, patient discharge. etc. the new system will take care of the
long processes and tedium work involved in tracing and retrieving patients record in
the old system.
Output Design

Output design determines the necessary input and processing method. The output

is the summary of the input taken from patient details, treatment, diagnosis and

prescription from doctor, nurse which can be shown on screen or produce as hard

copy.

4.3.1 PATIENT INFORMATION

Registration ID Date Time

Patient name Other name

Gender Blood group

Address Phone number

Genotype Occupation

Marital status Date of next visit

Disease Test recommends

Prescription of drug Medical officer

Nurse Ward number

Additional note Guardian ID

Guardian name

SAVE PREVIEW ADD DELET

User interface
This the home page display that shows the login tab , news .
 Chapter 5

5.1 Summary
This study embarked on the patient medical information,
database management which substitutes the manual system of
sorting, handling, searching, amending and keeping of patient
medical records. The importance and indispensable nature of
computer and its application in the hospital.
Conclusion
Based on the finding of this study, the design of hospital patient
database record will be a solution to the problem being experienced
by the manual method of keeping patient medical records.
Recommmendation
Training of all the members of the staff in the hospital in order to
understand how the new system operates should be the priority.