Development of a Health Management Information System Using Agile Software-Engineering ...

100 Pages·2014·8.3 MB·English

Development of a Health Management
Information System Using Agile
Software-Engineering Methods
Amir Kror Shahidzay
Thesis presented in fulfilment
of the requirements for the degree of
Master of Science
at the University of the Western Cape
Supervisor: Michael Norman
December 2013
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Declaration

I, Amir Kror Shahidzay, declare that this thesis “Development of a Health
Management Information System Using Agile Software-Engineering Methods”
ismyownwork, thatithasnotbeensubmittedbeforeforanydegreeorassess-
ment at any other university, and that all the sources I have used or quoted
have been indicated and acknowledged by means of complete references.
Signature: Date: 28th February 2014.
Amir Kror Shahidzay.
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Abstract

The purpose of this thesis is to discuss t he development of a web application
from scratch. It serves to build a health m anagement information system from
basic principles and covers all the software engineering activities starting from
the gathering of requirements, evaluating these and eventually implementing
a health management information system by applying several iterations of
the Agile-extreme-programming-software-engineering approach to develop a
Health Management System for the Kabul University Poly-clinic located at
Kabul University campus in order to computerize clerical activities at the
hospital.
Questionnaires were used to uncover the clerical problems experienced
bythehospitalstaff. Attemptstoaddresstheseproblemsbydesigningandim-
plementing software and refine the software after some iterations of feedback-
redesign-and-implementation following the guidelines of Agile extreme pro-
gramming.
The previous Health management systems at the hospital were paper
based. The new computerized system has eased the burdens of tracking the
files of patients at the hospital, leading to easier and more efficient access to
information by the health-care professionals at the hospital. An assessment
of the impact this has had on the medical and clerical staff and the smoother
administration of the hospital by repeated user acceptance testing by means
of questionnaires confirms the success of the project.
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Key words

Agile extreme programming

Design
Health management information system
Participatory design
Unified modeling language
Interface
Patient management
Dari
Use case
User Story
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Acknowledgments

This thesis is a compilation of the effor ts of many people that helped and
me through the years. I would first like to thank my supervisor Mr Michael
Norman and Dr Jan Plane for supporting and encouraging me during my
Masters study. Without our weekly meetings, this work would not have been
possible. Without their help I would certainly not be where I am today.
I would also like to thank USAID for their unwavering financial assis-
tance without which our efforts would have been impossible.
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