Computing project using Microsoft Access Essay

One of the administrative tasks in a hospital is to keep a record of loans to patients of equipment such as wheelchairs and crutches. The patients borrowing the equipment may still be in hospital or they may have been discharged. Records have to be kept of what equipment has been borrowed, by whom and when, and also if any equipment is not available because it is being repaired. You have been asked to create a computer application to replace the present manual one to record the necessary details to enable greater control to be kept and so cut down on loss and wastage. Design For this project, I am going to use Microsoft Access. The table below shows my design tasks list for the hospital patient and equipment database. Task Number Object Task Description 1 Patient Table Design the Patient table and the properties of its attributes 2 Equipment Table Design the Equipment table and the properties of its attributes 3 Equipment Status Table Design the Equpstat table for the Equipment Form Drop-down box 4 Patient Titles Table Design the Titles table for the Patient Form Drop-down box 6 Equipment Report. Design a Report to show current equipment status 7 Equipment Return Letter Design a report, in the style of a letter, which is sent to patients who have overdue equipment. 8 Patient Entry Form Design a form to provide a â€Å"front end† for the patient entry table 9 Equipment Booking Form Design a form to book equipment out to patients 10 Main Menu Form Design a form which can execute the other forms and records 11 Autoexec Macro Design a Macro that executes automatically on database open and opens the main menu 12 Security Implement some kind of security into the database. Design of Equipment Loaning System There are several types of equipment, ranging from wheelchairs to neck collars, and each type of equipment is available in different sizes, there are also several of each type and size of equipment. When deciding how to input and store the equipment into my database, I decided that their was two potential paths that I could follow: to place the equipment into my database with one record for each type and size of equipment, and having a â€Å"number in stock† field to represent multiples of equipment types with the same size. The second way of representing the data would be to let each individual piece of equipment have its own record. I elected to take the second route, although it would take more space, it would mean that if an item was damaged in someway, a note of the problem could be made in a â€Å"notes† field in the items record. The second problem I discovered was coming up with a way of having a code for each individual piece of equipment. Again, I found two main ways of doing this: An auto number system, or a system which would allow a user to determine what the equipment is just by looking at the code. I felt that the second way would be a better way of doing this, so I devised a system that fulfils this requirement (shown below). Item Codes Code Explanation WC Wheelchair CR Crutch EC Elbow Crutch NC Neck Collar -J Junior Size -S Small Size -M Medium Size -L Large Size -A Adult Size To get the individual items code, you simply add a number onto the end of the code. E. g. Junior Wheelchair number 1 would be WC-J1. Using this system, new pieces of equipment can be added with ease, whereas with an auto number system, it would mess up the order of the numbers. Equipment Booking Form Design Security This database holds confidential information about patients, and should therefore be kept secure from illegitimate access, both physically and electronically. As stated in the data protection act, it would be the hospitals responsibility to keep the data secure. I have employed a basic password protection system into the database, with only one user, as I feel that a multi user password system with different levels of access for each user would be inappropriate in this instance because the only users would be the desk staff, and occasionally the administrator for backup purposes. To provide security on an electronic level, I would recommend making sure there is an appropriate firewall system installed if the terminal the database is running on is connected to any network external to the hospital. I would also recommend a weekly backup to a removable media, kept in a fireproof safe, with back copies kept for as long as possible, in case the system is infected with an undetected Trojan. On a physical level, I would recommend that rooms where terminals have access to the database are kept locked. Implementation Task Number Object Screen Dumps from Access 1. Design View of Patient Form 13 Patient Form Data View of Patient Form 14 Main Menu Form Design View of Main Menu Form 15 Main Menu Form Data View of Main Menu Form 16 Main Menu Form Show Visual Basic Code used 17 Autoexec Macro Screen Dump of Autoexec Macro Patient Table Equipment Table Equipment Status Table Patient Titles Table Entity Relationship Diagram Equipment Report Customer Letter Report Equipment Form Patient Form Main Menu Form Main Menu (Vb Code) For the main menu, I decided to incorporate a clock, as it provides a purpose (to tell the time), and also looks good on the form. Equipment Form (Vb Code) For the equipment booking form, I used two visual basic sub forms; the first sets the return date and the out date when the â€Å"loan out† button is pressed, and the second sets the return date and the out date to zero when the combo box which controls the status of the item is changed. I used this last bit of code because it saves the user having to delete the date manually when the equipment is returned from loan, but it has the downside of having to set the status before pressing the â€Å"loan out† button, otherwise it undoes this action.