Mountain View Community Hospital

1. Mountain View Community Hospital (MVCH) wants to provide better services than their current deliverables. Therefore, databases can help MVCH reach their goal through making relational applications provide information about clients or patients without having a book or paperwork to search for every time. A centralized database application that is not a conjunction of separate applications makes information fluid and accessible without much of a hassle. For example, when a surgeon at MVCH would want information of a patient who has visited before, the surgeon could run an application on a handheld device that collects information from the database. At the same time, when the doctor is checking the file information on the patient, the nurse or other staff member can also access the information of the patient to know what is wrong with the patient exactly. This was, the efficiency of doctors and other members of the hospital can work in collaboration flawlessly. If the database is managed well, when government inspections are taken, the hospital can provide the required information as soon as possible, keeping the hospital’s integrity to the mark with the government.

2. Database technology can take various forms when it comes to complying with security standards of patients and their information. Firstly, the database can hold information of the patients that cannot be revealed to anyone in the hospital without certain security procedures (such as passwords/pins/usernames etc.) These security features help protect the information of a patient such as the illness information, the health insurance information, their social security information, and also their personal information. Therefore, databases can hold more than one security barrier before information is attained, that way, the hospital complies with HIPPA and the patient knows their information is safe.

3. With running a database, there are bound to be technological costs that will become inevitable. For example, with a centralized database, there has to be client devices that can access the database at any given time. With that being said, there has to be an always active network through which allocated personnel can access the database. Along with client users of the database, there will be the cost of maintaining the database up-to-date so no information is outdated whatsoever. Without a compatible client device, the database information is just dormant information that can only be accessed by technology administrators, which is not what the hospital wants; therefore, compatible devices are a must. A network connection between the database and the client device should be present at all times just so that in case of any emergency, information is easily accessible. Lastly, if the database is not maintained, there are chances of unplanned downtime, software malfunction, incorrect data, and also data loss. Therefore, client-device – network connection – database maintenance could be the costs and risks that can come up to the hospital which they would have to be prepared for.

4. Data quality in the hospital is highly critical because that is what shows the doctors, nurses, accountants all information on the patient. The quality of the data should be presented in a manner that when presented in a chaotic environment, the information is not one of the things contributing to the chaos. Some data requires to have more quality restrictions that have to be complied with, such as x-rays/CT-scans/mammograms which determine more than just an illness; these could determine life and death information, therefore, databases have to make sure that the quality is not compromised, even over the network.

5. As mentioned earlier, MVCH can hold information such as x-rays information, CT-scans and mammograms are high-quality images that need to be fitted into structured data. For example, when Mr. Phillips comes to get an x-ray for his ligament, the nurse logs his information in before he enters the x-ray room; and when the x-ray is developed, it structurally enters his information profile and can be accessed by a doctor who will assist him in the future.

6. Hospitals can use Web-based applications that can help patients or patients’ families access the records of the patients after going through certain security barriers. For example, the hospital can allow patients access their information from home or anywhere in the world when they are in need of their medical information. In an emergency situation, when a person is on vacation to Europe, they have an accident and break their wrist; the hospital may require medical history of the person which could be made accessible over an internet website. The risk to this is in case of a website hack, there are chances of data being compromised; however, if there is technology department in the hospital that keeps up with everything related to the database and the website, this should not be a huge concern.

7. It seems like the study team has drawn out all the 10 business rules that they had listed in the preliminary enterprise data model.