Hospital Automation System

1.1.Project Proposal

Information Technology Project 2010

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2. Abstract

The team has planned to develop a Hospital Automation System for the well known

hospital called Pannipitiya Nursing Home. Currently the client company depends on an error

– prone software system and a large amount of manual work. Development of a new system

will help the client company to minimize the work load they handle manually and to

eliminate the faults and errors of the existing software system.

This proposed system handles the entire hospital work load under seven major

functions namely; OPD, IPD, Medical laboratory, Pharmacy and stores, Doctor services,

Alert system and report generation and Billing system. The new system will be having key

benefits over existing system such as; high performance due to the immediate updating

service provided by the system, reduce errors of putting unnecessary purchase orders, access

to fully detailed description about the patient regarding their medical reports, doctors will be

pre - alerted about the appointment details of the day and thus the doctor can manage visiting

time, reduce human effort and the cost spends to train new employees etc.

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3. Table of contents

Contents

Sri Lanka Institute of Information Technology 1

1 Title of the Project 1

2 Abstract 2

3 Table of contents 3

4 Introduction and description of the project 4

4.1 Problem Specification 4

4.2 Solution Outline 5

4.3 Key Benefits 7

5 Objectives 8

6 Procedures 11

4.4 Flow of the project 11

4.5 Project Plan 14

5 Personnel and facilities 16

6 Hardware, Software Requirements 17

7 Budget 18

8 References 19

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4. Introduction and description of the project

4.1. Problem Specification

The team has planned to develop a software system for the well known hospital called

Pannipitiya Nursing Home which was founded in 1995. Having a staff over one hundred, the

hospital consists of an OPD, IPD, medical laboratory, indoor pharmacy and medical stores.

At present the hospital has over 50 specialists from leading hospitals from Sri Lanka visiting

hospital’s channelling chamber, daily.

The hospital handles lots of patients per day, so that it needs a system to handle the

daily tasks. Our team is planning to develop a new Hospital Automation System for the

hospital. But the hospital already has a system and also the staffs of that hospital use that

system for their daily official work. Though the staffs use the existing system, it contains lots

of errors. Because of that, most of the official works are done manually with the aid of books

and other hardcopies.

When they need to take the time schedule for a doctor who is working in this hospital

the staff is maintaining a book to store this data. When that particular doctor changed his

arriving time they need to update it in the book first and after that they are inserting it to the

system when they get confirmed. Otherwise they do not have a way to update channelling

details. So the updating of the data is very difficult at the moment.

Addition of a new doctor who is going to register in the hospital is also difficult and it these

records should be directly added through the server. They need a efficient system to

overcome that problem as well as to handle doctors details, because Doctor details are really

important for a hospital.

When the operator wants to add a patient detail the operator has to open two different

systems which are running concurrently in order to get that record to their hospital ledger. In

this case the operators who use this system face difficulties when they forget to open both

systems together. That record totally disappears from their accounts. It can be an effect to the

total income of this nursing home.

When we consider about the laboratory the system is containing several errors there

for instead of using the system they work with books by keeping records of the reports in

books. For this matter they have to maintain several books to store report details. When a

report is very urgent they used to write it in that relevant book. It is really a difficult thing to

refer more than one book for this laboratory works. Therefore laboratory needs a system to

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handle lab details properly. Furthermore they wanted to update the chemical quantity after a

releasing a lab report and that facility is not in this existing system.

There is a medical store which issues drugs to the pharmacy which they issue medicines to

the OPD and IPD. In that medical store also there is a system they use, but that system needs

an alert function for them to keep track on the drug quantity. They used to do this by maintain

all these drug quantities in books. That is totally a difficult task for the officer who is

handling the medical store.

Mainly there is a system to calculate all the payments and there is another system to

print bills called billing system. Therefore to insert a new record they have to open both two

systems. It is a big issue for them otherwise that entry will not go to the database.

When they are registering a patient in the ETU they need to get the registration number in the

form to the system and they need to have the receipt according to that number. But with their

current system they can’t achieve that requirement. They are printing that number as the

contact number temporary.

Finally we consider about the existing system in the Pannipitiya Nursing home. It

consists of lot of functions that users of that system have never used. So this seem to be very

much complex than what they expected. Therefore to get familiar to this system for a new

user is very difficult and to train a officer to this system is also very time consuming.

4.2. Solution Outline

This Nursing home faces lot of difficulties because of the existing system has lot of

errors. So they are really in difficulty when using the existing system and also handling

details in books. So the solution is a modified system with exact functions that they need.

To handle patients we are going to add OPD and IPD units to the system separately.

From these two systems they will be able to handle all the patient details without faults.

It will be easy to handle the medical store and indoor pharmacy by introducing an alert

system to. Then they can be able to know the quantity in the medical store for a specific drug.

So that there is no need to maintain books or files in order to complete that task.

For a totally manual handled function can be handled by adding a new function to that

system to manage medical laboratory. Therefore the officer of that laboratory will be able to

take the report details of the specific patient by entering the report number to the system.

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The director needs to take reports of total income and a summary report from the

system. To achieve this goal our team is planning to develop Reporting and an Alert system.

Our team is aiming to develop a system which is easily understandable to non IT persons as

well as to IT persons. It helps the management when training new users/employees for this

new system and the cost for the training will be reduced.

The figure 1.1 indicates a high level architechture diagram of the proposed Hospital

Automation System. The system manages OPD, IPD, Medical Laboratory, Pharmacy and

stores, Doctor services, Report generation and it consists of a well implemented database.

Figure 1: High level Architechture of Hospital Automation System

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4.3. Key Benefits

Currently client is working with a system which is having lot of errors. So this nursing

home has to maintain series of books to handle there data and records. It’s very time

consuming because maintain a system and manual process together is a very difficult task. By

automating this Hospital management system they will be having lot of benefits. They can

take this as an advantage. So that they can focus the condition of the system, income and their

services. This will reduce human effort and also the cost they spend to train a member for the

system will be reduced. And also system bears some more benefits to the hospital such as;

Administration can take summary reports whenever they need from the system.

Medical store can have high performance due to the immediate updating service

provided by the system when the drug quantity is reduced.

Can reduce errors of putting unnecessary purchase orders.

Laboratory staff can get a fully detailed description about the patient regarding to his /

her report by the new system.

Doctors will be benefited as; before the doctor visits the hospital they will be able to

know how many patients have put appointments. So that the doctor can manage his

time before visiting.

Cashiers can improve the efficiency with the newly automated system when issuing

receipts.

By implementing a new system we hope to give our best to our client and from that

system that company will be able to perform better than earlier.

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5. Objectives

The planned Hospital Automation System mainly consists of seven functions. Firstly

a patient who comes to the hospital is sent to the ETU (Emergency Treatment Unit). Then

that patient has to fill a form in the OPD (Outdoor Patient Unit).For this OPD we are going to

develop a function to add patient details, store patient details, Identify the patient, whether

that patient is registered patient in this hospital or not and after that that patient is sent to the

relevant unit. And there is a special feature that they requested is Vaccination. They need to

have a special entry for this feature in the OPD. So it will be handled by the OPD function.

Not only is the registration of the patient but also channeling handled by the operator who is

handling the OPD. Therefore the channeling will be implemented.

IPD (Indoor patient Department) is also a major function of the “ Hospital

Automation System” . This function is designed to maintain all the activities including to

Inpatient management. Indoor patient department process is divided into three main

categories. There are Indoor patient registration, Indoor patient management and discharge,

Billing. Registration will commence when the patient is being registered by giving their

personal information to our system and allocated a bed in the hospital ward. In this case each

and every patient treated in the ward will be given unique BHT number (Bed Head Ticket).

In indoor patient management according to the patient request the patient will be sent to

either ward or special rooms. That part is also maintained by our new system and because of

that Indoor Patient Department is again divided to two subparts called Ward management and

room management. Discharge summary is used to maintain all the details of the bills and

documents at the time of discharge of patient. When the patient is going to discharge from the

hospital, the billing details will automatically generate by the system. This module used to

keep all records of the charges of the services and facilities used by the patient during their

treatment. Such as room rent, medicines, operations, laboratory test charges, consultation,

nursing charges and etc.

Handling doctor information is one of the major functions of this Hospital automation

system. It consists several sub functions such as Add new doctor, Update doctor details,

Search for a doctor , and SMS Reminders to the doctors. Here, by Inserting doctor details

system will be able to add new doctor’s details to the database and it can be only done by the

director or the administrator. So the other staff will not be able to access this function. Update

Doctor details also one of a sub in handling doctor information.

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There it will be able to update the appointment list for the doctors, update channeling

time tables, permanent time tables and weekly schedules. Furthermore this function also has

SMS alert system for doctors to convey messages to doctors about his / her appointments.

In Pannipitiya nursing home Laboratory is also a main function and it is a very

important function. This function will keep track on the chemical quantity after a patient has

requested for a test. And here we are going to develop a laboratory report counter and also

operator of this function can be able to take the patient details by typing the receipt number

and patientID. There will be a way to give an alert to the patient about the report status

whether it is available or not. When the chemical amount is low it will sent a message to the

medical stores from this function. Finally this Laboratory function will be an advantage for a

long time manual process.

Handling reports is also a function of this “Hospital automation system”. Here the

administrator will be able to take reports daily, weekly and monthly from the system. Income

Report can be taken section wise according to the date and time or a given period. Patient’s

bills will generate from this reporting system. And here also there will be an alert system to

alert whenever the report is ready. There will be sub functions such as search, updates and

delete patient’s bills which can be accessed only by the audit and the administration. And t

this function can be accessed only by the audit administrator, and Director. This reporting

function will be responsible for generating summary reports for laboratory, OPD, IPD, and

Stores.

Maintaining Indoor medical store and pharmacy has several sub functions. This

system will manage the indoor medical store completely. It will contain a sub function to

issue drugs to the sections such as IPD, OPD, and Laboratory etc. And this function will

contain a sub function to update chemical stock and also this will be able to alert a message

whenever the drug quantity goes down than their drug quantity limits. This will maintain

orders as another sub function of the Indoor medical store. Before requesting drugs the

officer who is responsible of the medical store must put a purchase order which is generated

by the system. When the purchase order is sent to the vender the vender will sent a receipt

and those transactions are credit basis. Whenever a wrong purchase order is been sent the

officer who sent that cannot delete it from the system. It can be done only through

administrator login.

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Billing system is one of the major functions in this system because it is responsible

for the total income calculation of this nursing home. Billing system will handle payments of

the OPD , IPD , Laboratory , Medical Store and Other parts of the Pannipitiya Nursing home.

In the OPD this function has to handle all the payments of ETU , OPD – Channelling , and

Registration of patients in the system. In IPD this function will handle Hospital bills and

Agreement fee of the patients. Laboratory this function will handle laboratory bills. In the

medical store this billing function will handle all the purchases and calculate the income of

the indoor pharmacy. In the other parts such as dental services, X –rays etc also will handle

by the billing function of the Hospital automation system.

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6. Procedures

6.1 Flow of the project

All major functions of the project is divided between the 7 group members. The

functions were well understood at the hospital and the necessary information is gathered for

the relevant function by the group members.

The members were given functions according to their interests and their skill level by

the group leader so that the functions will be well-developed.

The functions of the group members are as follows:

Managing OPD -

Managing IPD -

Indoor medical store and pharmacy -

Managing medical laboratory -

Managing doctor services -

Report generation and alert system -

Billing System -

The team has planned to develop the software using Classical Waterfall model. In addition to

that a Prototype will be developed as required.

Feasibility Study

In order to see whether the project is feasible we monitored the activities done

throughout the Hospital Management System.

Following problems were identified in the current procedure:

Handling doctor schedules and allocating rooms for them is done manually using

paper based system and this was not so accurate.

Storing drugs in the inventory is done using an existing computer system and

sometimes it does produce wrong results.

When a patient wants a medical report from the laboratory some medical person has

to carry patient information from cashier to laboratory and this was time-consuming.

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As we implement the system along with the database we can reduce most of errors

and make the procedures faster to make the patients more satisfied.

Our system will require lesser number of users and it will be more user friendly than

the existing system.

Hospital has the required hardware components to run the system because it does not

need any high technological equipment.

We came to a conclusion that our proposed project is operationally feasible.

Gathering Requirements

All of our group members visited the hospital premises to meet the officers and the

workers to gather the requirements. We did interviews and questionnaires with them.

Also the group checked the receipts, reports and the services provided by the hospital to

the patients. Also we carefully monitored the main functions of the system.

Design

These are the tables of the database we are implementing for the system. But this will

vary from the final output of the project by the group members.

Patient Details

Login Data

Payment Details

Appointment Details

Storage Details

Income Details

The database will be developed using SQL 2005.

Notes:

First function above mentioned will allow the user to add patient details into the

database and update delete and search any record of the patient.

Second function will allow the user to add new doctor details, update doctor

details, delete and search any detail about a relevant doctor.

There is a SMS alert system in the system so that patients and the doctors will be

reminded of their appointments and to collect lab reports.

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SMS alert system will take phone numbers as input and send alerts to the person

needed. Managing doctor services, Managing OPD and Managing IPD will share

this function. Coding of this function will be done by the appointed member by

the group leader.

Patient Details will be the initial interface which the user will see and it will

follow some other interfaces which will be described here.

This interface will allow the user to add patient details to the database, select a

doctor, make an appointment and print a receipt.

All the payments made by the patients will be going to a table and a person in the

administrating department can generate monthly income reports and pay slips for

the doctors, nurses and other medical staff.

Summary reports can be generated for the labs daily which include all the details

of patients and tests in a day.

All medicine in the drug store will be shown in another interface when user clicks

a button. If a particular quantity of drug is under the required amount it will be

shown in red color so that the user can reorder them easily.

Coding

Coding will be done by the each member to develop the function given to them and

the interfaces will be developed prior to the coding by the whole team to make the

system eye-catching for the customer.

Testing

Testing will be done before the finished product is given to the customer and also

after the implementation.

Maintenance

Maintenance is done to ensure the system performs well after implementation and the

customer is satisfied for the whole time period which they will use the system.

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6.2 Project Plan

Figure 2: Gantte chart

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Figure 3: Gantte chart

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7. Personnel and facilities

Member Contribution Resources Involved

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8. Hardware, Software Requirements

There are number of hardware components connected with this system. To make the

software system more efficient these components are needed.

Hardware

Desktop personal computers

Pentium Dual Core 2.2 GHz512 MB RAM17” LCD Monitor 100 GB Hard disk driveUPS

Internet Modems and Dongles

Wireless Wired

Cables

Printers

Dot Matrix PrinterBubble Jet Printer

Desktop PC’s are used to run the system and to keep records about the data. Modems and

Dongles are used to send SMS alerts to the required persons. Cables are used to make a LAN

in the hospital premises. The Dot Matrix Printer and the Bubble Jet Printer are for printing

appointments, income reports and laboratory reports.

Software

SQL 2005 – Database Development

Visual Studio 2005 – System Development

The above mentioned software requires;

Pentium Dual Core 2.2 GHz 512 MB RAM 17” LCD Monitor / CRT Monitor 100 GB Hard disk drive UPS

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9. Budget

This Hospital Automation System involves with some high performed and expensive

equipments. Since those equipments are expensive, the Administrative officers of the

Hospital bares the financial expenditure on those equipments. The required software are

already available in the client premises.

Personal expenses

Traveling Rs. 1000.00

Communication Rs. 1000.00

Subtotal Rs. 2000.00

Project expenses

Internet Dongle Rs. 6500.00

Printouts Rs. 1000.00

Stationary Rs. 500.00

Subtotal Rs. 8000.00

Total Rs.10000.00

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10. References

Olsen, L. A., Technical writing and professional communication. 2nd ed. London:

McGraw- Hill companies. p.310-329

Schwalb, K., 2006. Information technology project management 4th ed. Delhi: Baba

Barkha Nath Printers. p.38-69.

Gerson, S. J. & Gerson, S. M., 2000. Technical Writing process & product. 3rd edition.

Sommerville, I., 2001 Software engineering. 6th ed. Delhi: Pearson Education.

Matthew MacDonald, Mario Szpuszta.Pro ASP.NET 3.5 in C# 2008, Second Edition

(Windows.Net).

Stephen Walther, ASP.NET Unleashed. November 26, 2001.

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