A patient tracking system for HIV/AIDS clinical trials: case study - Joint Clinical Research Center (JCRC)

Abstract

Tracking HIV/AIDS patients on ART by many health service providers is increasingly becoming difficult. This is because patients are not easily followed-up when on particular HIV/AIDS clinical trials, and because of this, many deaths have resulted from poor follow-up of HIV/AIDS patients on given clinical trials. JCRC together with PEPFAR came up with a decision to keep track of patients on particular HIV/AIDS clinical trials, which required HIV/AIDS patients to first be enrolled on a particular HIV/AIDS clinical trial. This led to a proposed system be built to help JCRC keep track of their patients. The aim of the proposed system was therefore, to develop a system capable of tracking HIV/AIDS patients on a given clinical trial. This system is capable of tracking Patients through their appointment visits. The proposed PTS was then developed using MSQL server 2000 for the database design, Visual Basic for the user interfaces. The PTS is a client-server based system, with the client system running on the users’ PCs, and the database system running on a server PC. The PTS enhances the ability of JCRC management to keep track of their patients while on particular HIV/AIDS clinical trials for easy follow-up. Users of this system are able to gain access by providing valid usernames and passwords.