An integrated, hospital information system based obstetrical medical record and database

Described in this paper is the implementation and integration of an obstetrical medical record and database into an existing hospital information system. A unique feature of this system was the integration of existing data captured by the established hospital information systems with the newly implemented obstetrical database to form a complete patient data profile. This complete database integrated data from hospital functions such as demographic data obtained at patient registration, outpatient visits and tests, inpatient admission historical data, tests and procedures, newborn data and miscellaneous data required for birth registration. An important second feature was the utilization of physicians and nurses to enter the obstetrical data. This permitted immediate access to patient data from any hospital information system terminal, immediate retrieval for generating reports, and subsequently, ad hoc queries, statistical analysis and the electronic transfer of birth registration data to the State Vital Statistics Registry.