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Computers and Clinical Audit: An Introduction for Doctors and Health Care Professionals PDF

192 Pages·1998·4.548 MB·English
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Computers and Clinical Audit Computers and Clinical Audit AN INTRODUCTION FOR DOCTORS AND HEALTH CARE PROFESSIONALS Sue Kinn Research Fellow Glasgow University Scotland and Tanya Siann Audit Co-ordinator Lanarkshire Health Board Scotland SPRINGER-SCIENCE+BUSINESS MEDIA, B.V. First edition 1993 © 1993 Sue Kinn and Tanya Siann Originally published by Chapmann & Hall in 1993 Typeset in 10/12 Times by EXPO Holdings, Malaysia ISBN 978-0-412-49280-8 ISBN 978-1-4899-6639-1 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-4899-6639-1 Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the UK Copyright Designsand Patents Act, 1988, this publication may not be reproduced, stored, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction only in accordance with the terms of the licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency in the UK, or in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the appropriate Reproduction Rights Organization outside the UK. Enquiries conceming reproduction outside the terms stated here should be sent to the publishers at the London address printed on this page. The publisher makes no representation, express or implied, with regard to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and cannot accept any legal responsibility or liability for any errors or omissions that may be made. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data available i§ Printedon permanent acid-free text paper, manufactured in accordance with ANSI/NISO Z 39.48-1992 and ANSI Z 39.48-1984 Contents Preface vii PartOne lntroduction to Computers 1 Introduction to the hardware 3 Introducing the personal computer 3 Other hardware devices 16 2 The development of the PC 23 The development of mainframe and minicomputers 23 The origins of personal computers 26 3 Introduction to the Disk Operating System (DOS) 36 What is an operating system? 36 Disk Operating System - DOS 37 Electronic filing 40 DOS commands 47 4 Introduction to the software 59 What is software? 59 Userinterfaces 64 Multi-media 67 Software copyrights 67 5 Designing a database 69 Relational databases 69 Database design 70 Data validation 72 6 Querying a database 75 Asking questions 75 Looking at the results 81 Databases and audit 81 7 Introduction to spreadsheets 83 Getting started 83 Looking at results 87 Disadvantages of using a spreadsheet 89 8 Introduction to word processing 91 Getting started 91 Disadvantages of word processors 99 _______________________ VI I l~ c_o_N_T_E_N_T_s_ _____________________~ 9 Sharing data and resources 100 Sharing data 101 An introduction to multi-tasking 104 Multi-tasking systems 106 Multi-user systems 108 Part Two Putting It Into Practice 113 10 Introduction to clinical audit 115 What is audit? 115 How to audit? 117 Practical hints for designing an audit 121 11 Codes in clinical audit 124 Using codes in a patient database 125 Using clinical codes and classification systems 127 Using codes to link clinical data 133 12 System development 137 General considerations 137 Small projects 140 Larger computer systems 145 Very !arge computer systems 157 Bibliography 163 Glossary 165 Index 180 Preface There are many books on audit in general, or audit within specific specialties. There are very few books that contain much practical information about computers and their use in audit. Those that exist tend to Iook at computerised audit systems which are already available and which can be customised for use with individual projects. Our experience of training health care professionals has shown us that there is a great demand for basic, practical information, which can be used to make informed choices about the types of computer systems required for audit. Most of this information is available but in very disparate places. Having spent many hours collecting it together for ourselves we decided to gather it together into one book. Wehave tried to make the book as free from jargon and as readable as possible. In particular we have included a glossary of terms which may be useful when reading other articles or books about computers. We hope that this book will help you make informed decisions about your use of computers and we would welcome any comments about the material we have covered. Wehave tried to avoid mentioning any application packages or computerised audit systems by name, although in some cases it has been unavoidable. Computer technology is changing so rapidly that any such information could be outdated by the time the book is published. We hope that this book will give you the necessary understanding to be able to refer to the numerous regular computer magazines, available at any newsagent, which provide a good source of comprehensive and up-to-date information on the latest computer developments. We recommend, if you are considering buying any equipment, that you consult the computer magazines and any technically minded people to whom you have access for advice about both hardware and software. The content of the book was divided so that Chapters 1,3,4,5,6,7 and 8 were written by Sue Kinn and Chapters 2,9,11 and 12 were written by Tanya Siann; Chapter 10 was a joint effort. We hope that this explains any perceived differences in style between different parts of the book. The following terms have been used throughout the text; they are the names of some of the companies that manufacture hardware and software, or the names I _____________________ VIII I~ P_R_E_F_A_C_E_ _____________________~ of specific types of software. They are registered trademarks: Microsoft, Microsoft Windows, Unix, IBM, Apple Macintosh, Amstrad, Digital Research, Pick, VME, VM/IS, BOS, DOS, Intel, Lotus, Motorola, DEC, OS/2, Sindair Spectrum, Atari, BBC computers. Special thanks are due to Jacqueline Riordan and Iona Young who helped with the preparation of some of the manuscript. Finally, we would like to thank our friends and families for putting up with our absences while we were writing the book. PARTONE Introduction to Computers Part One will concentrate on introducing the reader to the computer and unravelling the mysteries associated with it. The contents of each chapter are outlined below. Chapter 1 Covers the different parts of the computer (o r hardware) and how they fit together. It also explains some of the jargon associated with computers. Chapter 2 Covers the history of the computer and the development of the PC in detail. Chapter 3 Introduces operating systems, specifically DOS, the Disk Operating System, which is the most common operating system forPCs. Chapter 4 Discusses the range of software, or application packages that are available. Chapter 5 Looks at the principles of database design. Chapter 6 Covers the extracting of data from databases. Chapter 7 Looks at the the concepts of spreadsheets. Chapter 8 Introduces the concepts of word processors. Chapter 9 Discusses the principles involved in sharing data between different application packages and different users. The order in which the chapters about the different application packages are presented reflects their importance for audit. lntroduction to the hardware Outfine Hardware has been defined as: 'the parts of the computer that make a noise when you become so frustrated that you throw them on the ftoor!' Modem computer hardware is very varied and the choices available for the computer novice can be overwhelming. Most of the problems that people have with computers stem from a Iack of understanding of the jargon. Like all subjects the simple can be made very complicated by cloaking it with mysterious words. This chapter will explain what the different bits of the hardware are, how they fit together and some of the terms which are used to describe them. This chapter will give you an introduction to the different types of hardware devices available. It has been arranged to describe the components of the basic IBM-compatible personal computer (PC) as you might unpack it from a box. It then goes on to describe other hardware devices that you may encounter. The discussion, although based on the PC, is relevant to all computers. Introducing the personal computer A computer is a device which will allow large amounts of data to be processed and manipulated at high speed. This data can be numeric, graphic, textual, video, or a mixture of all of these. The basic component of a computer is silicon. At the heart of a computer are lots of circuits etched out on silicon chips; these chips need not concem users at all. It is the type of software package you are working with which will determine what type of data you can use and this is the subject of subsequent chapters. There are certain features that are common to all computers: these are shown in Figure 1.1. With any computer there has to be some form of input so that you can get your data or instructions into the computer. So that you know if the computer has performedas requested there is some form of output. All of the processing happens in the centrat processing unit (CPU). The memory of the computer is

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