Doctors' Clinic
A doctors' clinic consists of five doctors a receptionist and a manager. They need an information system to help them to run the facility.
A patient may ring the clinic to make an appointment with a doctor. Each patient nominally has a doctor associated with him or her but they may often opt to see any doctor in the clinic that is available. The receptionist sees which doctors are on duty on which days and offers appointment alternatives from which the patient may choose. If an appointment is not available within a short time and the patient must be seen quickly they are asked to attend an emergency clinic that takes place every evening between 5 and 6 p.m. The appointment can be 5, 10 or 20 minutes long, dependent on the reported reason for seeing the doctor. This reason is recorded on the system. Sometimes patients ring to cancel appointments. Appointments may be made for up to six weeks in advance. Appointments that are more than 3 weeks old are automatically deleted from the system. Some appointments are for a doctor to go and visit a patient at home when the patient cannot come to the clinic. Every day one of the doctors is available for home visits in the afternoon.
A record is kept of each patient and the treatments they have received for any ailments they may have had. Here are recorded many details such as allergies, details of which drugs patients have been administered in which quantities and when. Also relevant personal details of each patient are recorded. Typically the doctor who sees a patient will want access to this information before deciding on the relevant treatment to give. When the doctor prescribes treatment, details will be recorded in the patient's record.
Repeat prescriptions are automatically produced by the system and are available for collection at the clinic by the patient. At any time a doctor may suspend or cancel the prescriptions.
Patients may register with the clinic providing the number registered to each doctor is not above a certain maximum. Sometimes patients die or leave the area. In this case the patient is removed