A practical object-oriented approach to a development of a next generation hospital information system

Area of Science:

• Health Informatics
• Database Systems
• Software Engineering

Background:

• Current hospital information systems require integrated services for diverse users including patients and staff.
• Existing systems face challenges in managing varied clinical data requirements and ensuring efficient data retrieval.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a next-generation hospital information system named KIND.
• To create an essential and extensible data model for integrated hospital information management.
• To leverage object-oriented technologies for transparent data access and simplified application development.

Main Methods:

• Employed domain analysis to create a relevant domain model.
• Utilized an object-oriented description for the domain model.
• Implemented the domain model using an object-oriented database system.
• Applied object-oriented technologies in system development.

Main Results:

• Developed an integrated hospital information system architecture.
• Established an object-oriented domain model facilitating efficient data utilization.
• Enabled applications to access data transparently without complex queries.
• Integrated various hospital functions such as pharmacy, laboratory, and radiology services.

Conclusions:

• The KIND project successfully delivered a next-generation hospital information system.
• The object-oriented domain model enhances data management efficiency and extensibility.
• Object-oriented technologies are crucial for developing advanced, user-friendly hospital information systems.