Choosing the most efficient database for a web-based system to store and exchange ophthalmologic health records

Response times are a critically important parameter when implementing any telematics application. Hence, it is important to evaluate those times to check the performance of the system. Different database will get different response times. This paper presents a response time comparative analysis of the Web system of Electronic Health Record (EHRs), TeleOftalWeb, with the four databases used: Oracle 10 g, dbXML 2.0, Xindice 1.2, and eXist 1.1.1. Final goal of the comparison is choosing the database providing lower response times in TeleOftalWeb. Results obtained using the four databases proposed give the native XML database eXist an edge which, added to other features such as being a free software and easy to set up, makes us opting for it. TeleOftalWeb is being used by 20 specialists from the Institute of Applied Ophthalmobiology (Instituto de Oftalmobiología Aplicada, IOBA) of the University of Valladolid, Spain. At this time, there are more than 1000 EHRs and over 2000 fundus photographs of diabetic patients stored in the system.