IJCSI International Journal of Computer Science Issues, Volume 12, Issue 5, September 2015

ISSN (Print): 1694-0814 | ISSN (Online): 1694-0784

www.IJCSI.org 123

The Analysis and Design of an Integrated Hospital

Management System. The Case of Motherlove Hospital
John Kingsley Arthur1 and Madu Shedrach Jang2
1
Information Technology Department, Valley View University
Accra, Ghana

2
Information Technology Department, Valley View University
Accra, Ghana

Abstract anomalies, and some security problems as opposed to

Information handling at the hospital is very imperative to both Database Management technologies that seek to resolve
patients and the management of a hospital. Several Hospital the problems as mentioned above (Gihan and Haneen,
Management Systems have been developed with some number of 2013). Also, healthcare generates large volumes of data at
inconsistencies of data representation thereby, affecting the
disparate clinical environments at distributed locations,
effectiveness of the system in its entirety. Current systems tend to
store information in multiple databases which can result to data
and by wide variety of users (Bisbal and Berry, 2009).
redundancy, but this system will store all information in one Physicians most often make their decisions from these data
database so that information is updated to the same database to sources and hence must be well organized such that it will
avoid double entries in the system. The system is visualized as a not be prone to some basic errors.
web based application with three-tier architecture. The three-tier Notwithstanding the fact that the Hospital Management
architecture provides an increased degree of security because its System comes with several benefits, the current
multiple zones isolate protected healthcare data making it development has taken a trend that exposes it to one major
difficult for a hacker to get system-level access to the database. problem. That is; the Electronic Medical Record (EMR)
This research work brings to light some of the challenges in
Systems that are highly centralized, each Healthcare
existing systems, provide a gap analysis, propose an effective and
robust Hospital Management System that will perform better than Provider (HP) has its local EMR system. This makes
the existing ones. The research work also presents the analysis health information for any patient dispersed among
and design of the proposed system using flowcharts and Use different HPs and, therefore, its retrieval will be a
Cases. challenge (Zhang and Liu, 2010). In most cases the
application is developed in modules and each has its own
Keywords: Two-tier and three-tier architecture, Use Cases, database therefore updating records becomes a big
Data Redundancy. challenge. They do not have prompt feedbacks such as
short message service (SMS), emailing module or live
chart to and from physicians (Doctors).
1. Introduction
Now, more than ever, people have become more health
The timely provision of complete and up-to-date patient conscious and are taking necessary steps to ensure that
data to clinicians has for decades been one of the most they have a sound body and mind; that is why everyday
pressing objectives to be fulfilled by information there is an increase in patients who go for check-ups and
technology in the healthcare domain (Bisbal and Berry, treatments. A medical institution is primarily devoted to
2009). This situation has given rise to increase in the the diagnosis and care of patients. Basically, patients spend
number of Hospital Management Systems across the globe. a substantial amount of time in clinics waiting for services
Although these applications have become very much to be delivered by the doctor or health professional. The
known to majority, however, its adoption by some other degree to which the patients are satisfied with the care
hospitals has been very slow. For example, the chosen case received is relevant not only to the doctors’ expertise in
for this study, Mother-love Hospital, still keeps to the old their field but also to the quality services offered by the
method of organizing information. This comes along with Hospital Management System to ease the processes the
several challenges such as Data redundancy, data patient goes through. As the numbers of patients keep
inconsistency, difficulty in accessing data, data isolation, rising, managing a health facility can become increasingly
integrity problems, atomicity problem, concurrent access difficult, but an effective and efficient system can make all

2015 International Journal of Computer Science Issues

IJCSI International Journal of Computer Science Issues, Volume 12, Issue 5, September 2015
ISSN (Print): 1694-0814 | ISSN (Online): 1694-0784
www.IJCSI.org 124

the work seem easy. Therefore, this research work seeks to CMS by AIZ  Patient GAP: it was to provide a
analyze and design a Hospital Management System that
will allow hospital staff (doctors, nurses) access to patient Company Management flexible CMS, but it
records, reduce the stress in tracking records, reducing
(Azuan, 2005)  Medicine doesn’t control
patients waiting time and increasing the number of patients
served. appointments patients
Inventory

 Billing have with doctors or

2. Literature Review
 Patient even keep track of

2.1 Current Procedure at Motherlove Hospital Medical patients. Room

Currently, at the Motherlove Hospital, all operations Examination allocation/check also

are done manually. Before a patient can receive treatment
from doctors, first of all, they need to register. Afterwards, not present so room
the Hospital issues an Identification Card that has a unique
availability has to be
number on to the patient. If this card is misplaced, you will
need to register again. The ID cards are also linked with checked manually. As
the patients file that contains the patients diagnosis
information. After registration, the attendants search a stand-alone system,
patient’s file using the information on the ID card. The
patient may be assigned to a doctor/physician/expert for data are not
diagnosis. Lastly, billing and payment is done.
It is evident that as the number of patients grow, the continuously updated.
dependency on human effort in the search of files and
information for patient will be very difficult.
Finch Data  Patient GAP: this handles
2.2 Gap Analysis Of Existing System
Soft CMS Registration registration, room
Table 1: Gap Analysis of Existing System
Name of Functions GAP (FDS, 2010)  Room allocation and billing.

System Allocation More modules are

CMS by  Patient The system covers  Billing needed too. No

Business Registration registration and inventory of medicine,

Computer  Scheduling scheduling of so availability of

Application Appointment appointments but it medicine is unknown

Inc  Database doesn’t cover the before prescription.

(Azuan, 2005) Management complete management of Here focus is more on

In-Patient and Out- Inpatients than

patient department. The Outpatients.

few modules cover only a

part of the system. Dee Medical  Patient The system is strictly for

OPD CMS Registr Outpatients. It only

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IJCSI International Journal of Computer Science Issues, Volume 12, Issue 5, September 2015
ISSN (Print): 1694-0814 | ISSN (Online): 1694-0784
www.IJCSI.org 125

(In-House ation extends to the to view the patient admit-history. The administrator
manages all system data and activities, from registration to
developed  Billing Inpatients during using the feedback module to send SMS or email to the
patient to ensure patient satisfaction after services
application, registration where
rendered. Also in the feedback module is a live chat for
2014) they are given real-time communication with patients once they are
logged in to the system. The administrator also generates
registration numbers. reports from the system when the report is needed. The
doctor can access information from the database, so he/she
This number is now knows how to attend to the patient before the patient meets
him/her. If a patient is referred to the laboratory, the lab
used for locating an technician takes a number of tests and saves them to the
database so the doctor can access the information without
Inpatients’ file using
communicating to the lab technician. If referred to the
the manual filing pharmacist, the drugs or medication that is prescribed to
the patient is saved to the database. With one database, we
system. It is an can see it is all about the various departments updating
information on the patient data that is already stored in the
organised filing system and if there is any need for that information, it is
easily retrieved from the database. Since the information in
system but the time the database is backed up in the cloud, as soon as any
update is made, the cloud is updated with the information.
taken to retrieve a file
This is basically how the system works. All information
is long. Room from the users will be stored to the database and the
information is backed up on the cloud, so data is secure
availability check and readily available anytime it is requested.

cannot be performed.

In the above table the various systems are considered with

their functionalities and the deficiencies. It is realized that
the existing system do lack the integration of SMS, email,
and live chart. Also, in the complex applications, each
module is linked to a distinct database thereby upon
updating of records there are redundancies. Patients need
to have easy access to their information, likewise the
physicians (doctors). Therefore, the integration of SMS,
email, and a chart module that will allow patients to
communicate with physicians is important in this instance.

3. The Proposed System

3.1 Theoretical framework of proposed system

The proposed system is a web-based system so activities
are done over the network. With the use of one database,
the system needs to backup all data as it enters into the Fig. 1 Theoretical framework of the proposed system.
database. So once any bit of information is stored in the
database, the backup is immediately stored on the cloud.
From here the patient can access the system from the cloud

2015 International Journal of Computer Science Issues

IJCSI International Journal of Computer Science Issues, Volume 12, Issue 5, September 2015
ISSN (Print): 1694-0814 | ISSN (Online): 1694-0784
www.IJCSI.org 126

3.2 Benefits Of The Proposed System With a single database it is much easier to develop
reports that show a broad range of activities
performed in hospital. With multiple databases,
Cloud Storage: Cloud backup delivers next
records need to be matched, de-duping needs to
generation intelligent data backup and recovery to
occur and the opportunity for duplicate records is
protect organisation’s business critical data in one
greatly increased.
simple unified solution. The purpose behind cloud
storage is to protect the information from the risk of
loss associated with fire, theft, hacking, or any kind With a single database, support is focused on one
of technological disasters. With current encryption product. With multiple databases, even if they are all
and security practices, data backed up in the cloud is built on the same platform, separate support is
highly secure (Clark, 2012). required for each database. In conclusion, the
hospital management system will simplify and
centralize updates on information, improve quality of
Cloud solutions leverage the elasticity of cloud
service, reduce errors and increase efficiency of the
computing to become more agile in responding to
system.
changing circumstances, like rapid data growth,
which can easily be accommodated because it is
cloud based, so increasing or decreasing your storage Feedback Module: This module contains SMS, e-
capacity should be painless. It also allows the user to mail and live-chat service in which all will be used
concentrate solely on his/her work without worrying as a medium to convey important information to
about data loss. You can restore lost data with zero patients and even staff. With this module you can
downtime. send general broadcasts of urgent/important
information, such as alerts/updates on epidemics.
You can broadcast to the masses at low cost and the
The cloud is invisible as it has no singular physical
message is available in the patient’s phone inbox so
location, so remote access is also a simple and
when they are ready they can read quickly and easily
feasible benefit of cloud backup. Once you can
at no cost. For booking/scheduling, the feedback
connect to the remote server, you have access to all
module decreases long queues, which can help
the data that you have stored in the cloud. From
resolve physical space issues. It is also time saving
wherever your contact point is, gaining access to the
for patients and they have the option to reschedule
information backed up on the cloud from your
their appointment if the desired slot is unavailable.
system ensures consistency and an easy approach
With the feedback module, the system requires
across departments.
feedback on patient’s condition, which can benefit
the patient as they receive better attention from well
Single Database: A single database decreases the informed caregiver. This module can also be used for
quantity of information managed and saves clinicians updates like health and diet tips to patients at home.
time spent on repeated data entry (Russel, 2013). The And also a step in fostering good relationship with
greatest benefit of a single database is data integrity. patients, for instance; sending greetings for birthdays
One of the cardinal rules of database design is that will be a good way to build up hospital rapport that
no redundancy is allowed, which means no piece of is not costly for the automated system. It can also be
data should ever be repeated within the database. used to get feedback on out patients that are on
When information is about to be entered in the medications, asking how they feel since they started
system from any department in the hospital, if the taking the drugs prescribed to them as there is no
information is already stored in the database, the medical personnel to watch them till their next
system will notify the user that the information about appointment. This is a good way of extending care to
to be entered is already available in system, thereby the patients and building a better relationship with
preventing data redundancy. So when any change is them.
to be implemented, there is only one place to look to
make the changes.

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IJCSI International Journal of Computer Science Issues, Volume 12, Issue 5, September 2015
ISSN (Print): 1694-0814 | ISSN (Online): 1694-0784
www.IJCSI.org 127

4. Design of the Proposed System Fig 1 and Fig 2 shows the flow of the proposed system. All
the users whether the Administrator, Doctor, patient,
technician, or whosoever will need to identify him or
herself with the system. The portals for each of the actors
on the system are customized based on their access levels.

Fig 2: Flowchart of the Proposed System

Fig 3: Use Case Diagram of the Proposed System

Figure 3 above, shows each of the actors of the system and

what they can do on the system.

5. Conclusions and Recommendation

The use of computer systems to ease the performance of
grueling tasks has gradually crept its way into the African
society as the initial paranoia towards automated systems is
fading out. Therefore, Hospital Management System can
Fig 3: Flowchart of the Proposed System do nothing but benefit a clinic in terms of productivity and
patient service provision.

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IJCSI International Journal of Computer Science Issues, Volume 12, Issue 5, September 2015
ISSN (Print): 1694-0814 | ISSN (Online): 1694-0784
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Protecting the valuable and confidential information stored [4] F. K. S. Gihan and A.M. Haneef(2013). Database and Flat
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ensuring regulatory compliance. Since the use of cloud
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sensitive information will be handled in that module.

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2015 International Journal of Computer Science Issues