Out Patient

Management Module
 Specification for Out Patient
Management Module
Problem Specification
Virgo Hospital has its business growing considerably and the public appreciation of its health
care services is reaching dizzy heights. Always noted for its super-specialty medical care
and use of hi-tech equipment and operations, the hospital seeks to employ state-of-the-art
information technology to forge ahead in the business The Chairperson of the hospital
made clear her conviction that effective use of information technology will result in strategic
business advantages. A free hand has been given to the project planners to deploy the
best hardware resources and also get the best functional software. The following are some
of the extracted "requirements" from the brainstorming sessions that company executives
had over a period of three months.
• A decision was taken to have a Health Information Network for the hospital.
• The system is expected to cater to the various stakeholders like the patients,
physicians, laboratory technicians, investors, employees, employers and others.
Subsequently, the Information Management Model that the company chose has the
following entities:
o Ambulatory care
o Acute care
o Home health care - where care is provided at one's residence
o Extended care - including camps, etc.
o Corporate systems - care to specific corporate entities
• The major areas for the deployment of information technology for the Virgo
Hospitals are given below.
o Outpatient management.
o In-patient management.
o Facilities management, including beds, wards, etc.
o Accounting and billing.
o Stores and inventory management
o Pharmacy management (should be treated separately from general
stores on account of its specialized nature).
o Blood bank management.
o Employees record, payroll and capability database.
o Operation theatre scheduling and management.
o Medical records - in this case it is desired to employ futuristic
technologies with PCs deployed to all staff so that a less-paper office
is realized.
o Laboratory analysis, data recording, etc.
o Radiology data management through computer based imaging.
o ICU management.

Out Patient Management Module 1. Specification for Out Patient Management Module 1
 o Image guided surgery using virtual reality techniques.
o And several more…
• The task force observed that personnel, equipment, etc. should be easily
transferable across the hospital, and all information accessible in a seamless
manner.
• A host of Management Information System reports about the hospital to be available
for access from all departments.
• Security is a key issue, especially when patient confidentiality is a vital factor in
attracting customers and keeping them happy.
• Since the functioning of the information technology is life-critical, the system should
have a high degree of reliability, availability and certain fail-safe measures.
• The task force conceded that while the reasonably complete requirements have
been documented in the monumental 897-page report (not included here!), there
is considerable chance that the requirements turn out to be somewhat volatile.
Therefore the system must be designed to be malleable to change.
• Since manpower is expected to be the key, but highly expensive resource, it was
recommended that computer based training systems be deployed for on-the-job
training and continuing education for the staff - doctors, surgeons, nurses and
support staff.
• Archiving of medical records, radiology records, etc. is a vital function with strong
querying and reporting capabilities.
• Since much of the databases involve critical and confidential data, it is proposed to
have a strong procedure built-in for audit trail. An audit trail, for instance, can help in
analyzing when and by who was a set of data records modified.
• Provisions must also be made for a reasonable amount of Decision Support for
managers and epidemiological researchers.
Of course, the foregoing statement was for the complete requirements for Virgo Hospital.
For the purposes of this project, we merely are aware of the myriad requirements and the
complexity of the software solution required. With this in the background, we shall
concentrate on the Outpatient Management aspect only.

Outpatient Management Module for Virgo Hospitals

A set of partial requirements is given for the Out-patient Management Module. In this
exercise, you are expected to primarily concentrate on these requirements with the general
requirements of Virgo Hospitals serving as a complete picture.
1) Outpatients can be treated at the hospital and the records of the patients may be
accessed.
2) Whenever a patient reports to the outpatient reception executive, he/she is required to
fill in a fairly comprehensive personal data sheet as part of the registration process.
The reception executive quickly enters all these data before the patient may be
allowed to proceed to a doctor.
3) Since some cases need to be attended to immediately, there are two forms of personal
data taken. One is a Mini Registration Form that contains only the basic

Specification for Out Patient Management Module Out Patient Management Module 2
 data items required to enable a person to be immediately attended to by a doctor.
Of course, the Comprehensive Registration Form needs to be filled in later. The data
items present in the Mini Registration Form as well as the Comprehensive Registration
Form are given in Figures 1 and 2 respectively. The forms simply give the various data
items that are needed by the hospital. No effort has gone into the format or look and
feel of the forms at this stage.
4) General physicians who may later recommend the case to a specialist usually handle
all outpatients. The hospital has on its roster a number of general physicians and
specialist consultants. Their data, availability, etc. are all maintainedin order to handle
the tasks of outpatient management efficiently. Clearly, there is a need to create, add,
delete, modify and view the database of the medical personnel
5) Each doctor should be able to access the records of the particular patient being treated
by him/her. The doctor should be in a position to note diagnosis information,
recommend laboratory tests, prescribe medication and even fix a future follow-up
appointment. The doctor could also have the facility to refer the patient to a specialist.
The appointment for that is not within the scope of the out patient module.
6) The doctor should have the capability to review the appointment history of the patient,
the various diagnosis, tests and results, medicines prescribed, etc.
7) The outpatient management module must also provide a facility to charge the patients
for the consultation, the tests and the medicines. Payments may be made through cash
or through credit card. A bill would be prepared for each patient and handed over to
the patient.
8) The reception executive must have the facility to make appointments for patients in
advance too. Usually, the patients have to meet the same doctor they met in the first
appointment. This rule is relaxed either when the concerned doctor is not available or
when the patient has gone for a follow-up treatment in a different city.
9) The management requires certain reports to be made available daily, some on a
weekly basis and some on a monthly basis.
10) The daily reports generated are the following.
• Number of patients seen by various doctors.
• Number of new patients and number of follow-up patients.
• Summary of consulting fees charged, the tests ordered and medicines
prescribed for each patient.
11) The weekly reports and monthly reports generated are the following.
• Chart depicting numbers of new and follow-up patients handled.
• Average number of patients handled by each doctor during the week/month.

Out Patient Management Module 1. Specification for Out Patient Management Module 3
1. Specification for Out Patient Management Module Out Patient Management Module 4
3 Steps to Build the Project Out Patient Management Module 12