An automated system for minimizing preventable medical errors

Abstract

The good hospitals in Uganda notably have invested in accounting systems for income management at the expense of medical error tracking and related systems. In this study a computer based Medical Information System was developed to help minimize some common preventable medical errors such as; prescription errors, errors due to misidentification of patients and errors resulting from pharmacists’ failure to read hand written prescribed information that still prevails in Uganda Hospitals. The System supports a quick and reliable diagnosis by providing the physician with patient background information like previous illnesses and blood group. Besides the actual treatment of a given patient, the System also greatly helps to improve medical research by providing complete medical records of millions of Patients. The System interface was developed using C# which is an object oriented programming language. The web component of the system was developed using php and html. The application links to a database on SQL Server 2000. The main strength of this automated system is its capability to improve the efficiency of the health care system significantly for patients.