الخدمات الطبية .. الحاسبات تعمل

Medical Services .. Computers Work

Medical Services

The computer can greatly increase the efficiency and effectiveness of medical services in hospitals, especially with regard to nursing services and data processing.

Clerical work

Hospital work requires the preparation and continuous renewal of many medical and administrative records, which consumes a lot of the effort and time of hospital employees, as the various hospital departments draw up information about each patient since his admission to be kept in a special record for him. The patient's record usually begins with a referral from his doctor and a hospital admission form and any other prior information, to which doctors' notes and medical data such as examination results, X-ray examinations, electrocardiograms, etc. are later added.

To enter this information into the computer in a continuous manner, many remote crossings and devices are required, which requires a computer with great capacity, large storage, and long communications. The display console is widely used to connect to the computer and consists of a touch panel, similar to a typewriter panel, through which instructions and information are entered directly into the computer via regular telephone lines, and a television screen that shows the entered features and the computer's response to inquiries directed to it.

When a patient enters the hospital, the computer is provided with the patient's identification number and initial information about him, via a touch panel, then additional information about the patient is entered whenever available, either in the same way, or via punched cards prepared in advance, or directly from some examination and analysis devices, so that a comprehensive record of the patient is collected in succession and the computer classifies it based on the patient's name and number.

A main program in the computer manages the affairs of income, output, classification and calculation: Large systems with time sharing may have several processors, each of which performs one or more tasks while the rest of the processors perform other tasks at the same time. One processor controls and coordinates the work of the other processors, so that all those using the computer at the same time do not feel that the computer is working for them alone.

A system for collecting a large amount of medical and administrative data issued by the various departments of the hospital and coordinating and storing this data.

The administrative offices are connected to the computer system to keep their records and organize the allocation of beds and operating rooms. If the computer is asked about this, via a touch panel, the computer shows on the television screen the vacant beds of the required category or those that will be vacant on a specified date, and also shows when the operating rooms are not occupied. If a bed or operating room is reserved, the computer adjusts its lists and includes this new information.

The computer system undertakes the procedures for checking medications and avoiding incorrect dosage amounts. Nothing related to the medication is declared until it first receives the request, then confirms this request from another station supervised by an authorized person.

Unauthorized persons are prevented from using the computer. Each authorized person is given a plastic card perforated in a special pattern that identifies him, and he inserts it into a special reader at each computer connection station, so that the computer recognizes him before responding to him.

Scientific researchers use the system to perform their calculations and to search its records for information of interest to them.